Samuel Butler Quotes

Quotes about:

• Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.

  Samuel Butler

  Motivational

  Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4163, Delphi Classics

  82 Copy quote
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  Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

  Samuel Butler

  Integrity, Grateful, Character

  Sir Francis Bacon, Samuel Butler, William Morris (2014). “The Utopia MEGAPACK ®: 20 Classic Utopian and Dystopian Works”, p.31, Wildside Press LLC

  64 Copy quote

• All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

  Samuel Butler

  Life, Motivational, Happiness

  Way of All Flesh (1903) ch. 19

  41 Copy quote

• Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

  Samuel Butler

  Freedom, Book, Soul

  Samuel Butler (1951). “Notebooks”

  41 Copy quote

• The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

  Samuel Butler

  Trust, Print Media, People

  Samuel Butler (1951). “Samuel Butler's notebooks”

  13 Copy quote

• Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

  Samuel Butler

  Thinking, Enemy, Looks

  Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.205, ReadHowYouWant.com

  11 Copy quote

• The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

  Samuel Butler

  Ignorance, Character, Pride

  Samuel Butler (1827). “The genuine poetical remains of Samuel Butler, with notes by R. Thyer. With a selection from the author's Characters in prose”, p.225

  54 Copy quote

• Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

  Samuel Butler

  Inspirational, Motivational, Music

  Samuel Butler (2016). “The Way of All Flesh”, p.57, Samuel Butler

  29 Copy quote

• Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

  Samuel Butler

  Life, Wisdom, Art

  Notebooks "Life" (1912)

  18 Copy quote

• Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

  Samuel Butler

  Life, Educational, Learning

  Speech at the Somerville Club, 27 Feb. 1895, in R. A. Streatfield Essays on Life, Art and Science (1904) p. 69

  112 Copy quote

• If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

  Samuel Butler

  Long, Littles, Remains

  Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4161, Delphi Classics

  6 Copy quote

• An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

  Samuel Butler

  Funny, God, Im Sorry

  Notebooks ch. 14 (1912)

  19 Copy quote

• Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

  Samuel Butler

  Funny, Friendship, Sarcastic

  Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.126, ReadHowYouWant.com

  46 Copy quote

• Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.

  Samuel Butler

  Sympathy, Kind, Death Sympathy

  Samuel Butler (1950). “The Essential Samuel Butler”, London : J. Cape

  11 Copy quote

• It is tact that is golden, not silence.

  Samuel Butler

  Silence, Golden, Programming

  Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.43, ReadHowYouWant.com

  17 Copy quote

• No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.

  Samuel Butler

  Mistake, Common, Logic

  Samuel Butler (1970). “A critical and annotated edition of Samuel Butler's Erewhon”

  12 Copy quote

• Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.

  Samuel Butler

  Divorce, Religion, Church

  Samuel Butler (1950). “The Essential Samuel Butler”

  27 Copy quote

• Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

  Samuel Butler

  Logic, Reason And Logic, Appeals

  Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4351, Delphi Classics

  17 Copy quote

• Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.

  Samuel Butler

  People, Religion, Band

  Samuel Butler, Hans-Peter Breuer (1984). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883”, Univ Pr of Amer

  10 Copy quote

• Life is one long process of getting tired.

  Samuel Butler

  Love, Life, Tired

  Notebooks (1912) ch. 1

  35 Copy quote

• The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.

  Samuel Butler

  Life, Happiness, Fear

  Samuel Butler (1951). “Samuel Butler's notebooks”

  33 Copy quote

• The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

  Samuel Butler

  Religious, Men, Important

  Further Extracts from Notebooks (1934) p. 93

  31 Copy quote

• God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

  Samuel Butler

  Education, Past, History

  16 Copy quote

• Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.

  Samuel Butler

  Inspirational, Moving, Religion

  Samuel Butler (2013). “Erewhon Revisited”, p.85, Simon and Schuster

  14 Copy quote

• To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

  Samuel Butler

  Beauty, Pain, Compassion

  11 Copy quote

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