Samuel Butler Quotes (page 2)

1612-1680, British Poet, Satirist
quotes
116
topics
12
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“Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.”
Life and Living
“If life must not be taken too seriously -- then so neither must death.”
Death and Dying
“Logic is like the sword -- those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.”
Logic
“Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.”
Belief
“Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.”
Tact and Tactfulness
“Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.”
Humankind
“The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.”
Books and Reading
“People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.”
Cheerfulness
“An empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed.”
Home
“The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.”
Bores and Boredom
“Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.”
Life and Living
“Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.”
Moralists
“Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.”
Wisdom
“The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.”
Lies and Lying
“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”
Fun
“Science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.”
Science and Scientists
“Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.”
Alliances
“To live is like to love-all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.”
Life and Living
“The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.”
Common Sense
“There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.”
Death and Dying
“The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.”
Experts
“Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.”
Evil
“The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.”
Public Opinion
“There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.”
Thoughts and Thinking
“From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.”
Infallibility
“Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.”
Lies and Lying
“Life is like playing the violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.”
Life and Living
“If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.”
Reason
“The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.”
Writers and Writing
“The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.”
Food and Eating