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They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'


Samuel Butler

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They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he na...
SAMUEL BUTLER The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or...
JOHN RUSKIN Let there be no inscription upon my tomb; let no man write my epitaph: no man can write my epitaph.
ROBERT EMMET The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his power...
JOHN RUSKIN All animals except man know that the ultimate point of life is to enjoy it. -Samuel Butler.
SAMUEL BUTLER At least I can say that I'm honest.
ADAM LAMBERT The measure of a man is what he does with power.
PLATO I have neither curiosity, interest, pain nor pleasure, in anything, good or evil, they can say of me...
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Taylor's lawyers say they are still assembling his defense team, and they are not qualified to say w...
DESIREE LEPPENS All a guy needed was a chance. Somebody was alway controlling who got a chance and who didn't.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI That's what I want to invoke on them. This is bigger than them and it is sport and it's a chain of e...
RICK SAY They looked at the videotape because of Kali, but I guess they liked the other boys. Same thing happ...
WENDELL SAY We are told to remember the idea and not the man. Because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can b...
ALAN MOORE Whether women are better than men I cannot say, but I can say they are certainly no worse.
GOLDA MEIR Whether women are better than men I cannot say - but I can say they are certainly no worse.
GOLDA MEIR What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thie...
SITTING BULL I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
G. C. (GEORG CHRISTOPH) LICHTENBERG I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is that they must change if...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG On a grassroots level we say that man can touch more than he can grasp.
GABRIEL MARCEL A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon.
ARNOLD HAULTAIN The least one can say of power is that a vocation for it is suspicious.
JEAN ROSTAND Only he who can say, The Lord is my strength, can say, Of whom shall I be afraid?
ALEXANDER MACLAREN Rossella, non ho mai avuto la pazienza di raccogliere i frammenti di un oggetto rotto per incollarli...
MARGARET MITCHELL I know what kind of person he is so they can say whatever they want.
EMMANUEL LEWIS They can evaluate their current position and say, 'I've had a suspicion I'm being underpaid.' They c...
BILL WERKSMAN ...There are also those who inadvertently grant power to another man's words by continuously trying ...
CRISS JAMI Chirac seems completely out of the loop. It's all very strange. As a doctor, I can't say whether he'...
BERNARD KOUCHNER People don't know what they can say and what they can write, ... The scientific community can't oper...
EDWARD FELTEN I would say that IQ is the strongest predictor of which field you can get into and hold a job in, wh...
DANIEL GOLEMAN I can't establish the veracity of what people say because only they know whether they are tellin...
DAVID TANG A domain name is not just the source of a Web site, but the substance of a Web site. You can say the...
PAUL LEVY So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ag...
VIRGINIA WOOLF To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.
POPE FRANCIS Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. The difference between a smart man and a wise man is that a smart man knows what to say, a wise man ...
FRANK M. GARAFOLA LADY BRACKNELL

Algernon is an extremely, I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible you...
OSCAR WILDE Whatever this test leads to is still unknown right now, but I will always be able to say that I got ...
ALLISON DUNCAN All I can say is that I had an extraordinary childhood.
BARBARA BROCCOLI It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
G. K. CHESTERTON It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
G.K. CHESTERTON I can pick good food, but I can't pick a good man.
DEBBIE REYNOLDS You realize the limits of your body. The thing you don't want to do is freak out and swim hard. At s...
CAN OSTEN Kurtuluş Savaşı yılları... Türkiye Cumhuriyeti'nin kuruluşunda emeği geçen ama gölgede kal...
CAN DüNDAR Divers have found there is no air left in the holds of the ship. That means sea water has filled the...
CAN KARACA They must be all dead, if there is anybody else in those holds.
CAN KARACA There is little hope to find them alive.
CAN KARACA Bi sen eksiktin ayışığı
Gümüş bir tüy dikmek için manzaraya!
CAN YüCEL How can I believe the people that say women have equal rights? When the worst insult a man can be ca...
LAURA BATES It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it.
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON I'm mad, they say. I am temperamental and dizzy and disagreeable. Well, let them talk. I can tak...
IDA LUPINO A man of guilt acknowledges and changes himself immediately on being hinted slightly about his fault...
ANUJ SOMANY Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than th...
HENRY FIELDING Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than th...
HENRY FIELDING Nobody can say a word against Greek: it stamps a man at once as an educated gentlemen.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW Nobody can say a word against Greek: it stamps a man at once as an educated gentleman.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW I don't know, man. ... What can I say?
JAVIER VALENTIN How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is I will see you in the vestry after ...
SYDNEY SMITH How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is, "I will see you in the vestry afte...
SYDNEY SMITH The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor.', I replied, 'Th...
ROY BLOUNT, JR. The last time somebody said, 'I find I can write much better with a word processor.', I replied, 'Th...
ROY BLOUNT JR. What can you say about such a man as Christopher Reeve? He embodied all the best that a human being ...
ANNETTE O'TOOLE All I can say is I've heard he was on the phone with the boy at the time of the crash. Now whether t...
BRENT BROWN Any man who can write a page of living prose adds something to our life, and the man who can, as I c...
RAYMOND CHANDLER Man may be defined as the animal that can say I, that can be aware of himself as a separate entity.
ERICH FROMM Man may be defined as the animal that can say "I," that can be aware of himself as a separate entit...
ERICH FROMM I have known many an instance of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign his name, but this is...
HENRY WARD BEECHER When people say what is 'Gone With the Wind' about, they say it's a love story between R...
DONALD MCCAIG They're saying this isn't about lyric content, and it is. And I respect my right as an American to s...
TOBY KEITH Can't think of anything to say. Feeling a bit nervy. Kinda like a bloke who has just asked the girl ...
JAMES GREEN They say that's a lot of the test, ... I've heard it's pretty tough.
DREW BROWN Sometimes, the indefinite article 'an' seems unnecessary to me. We can use 'a' instead of 'an'. It w...
MD. ZIAUL HAQUE He said after a little while, 'I see why you say that only men do evil, I think. Even sharks are inn...
URSULA K. LE GUIN You deserve to be with somebody, who knows you're the one, from that very first moment he lays eyes ...
C. JOYBELL C. Any fool can say he is wise but only someone wise can admit he is a fool.
MICHAEL REED One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him...
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY He must pull out his own eyes, and see no creature, before he can say, he sees no God; He must be no...
JOHN DONNE Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made ...
THEODORE WHITE Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or mad...
THEODORE H WHITE Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made ...
THEODORE H. WHITE I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted.
JESSE JACKSON I could be working 300 hours a week. I just say 'no.' The power of slow is the power of no. ...
CARL HONORE If you can write it, I can be it.
KAREN BLACK If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN What can we say? What can we do? How many times can you stand in a courtroom beside an innocent man ...
KATHARINE LIELL Man is an exception, whatever else he is. If he is not the image of God, then he is a disease of the...
G. K. CHESTERTON One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh before you know anything of him, yo...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY Their very imagination was dead. When you can say that of a man he has struck bottom... there is no ...
MARK TWAIN Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you think, ‘Man, this hurts, I...
HARUKI MURAKAMI Many criminals believe what they say is true; they could pass a lie detector test.
MICHAEL MOORE Whatever good, true, or perfect things we can say about humanity or creation, we can say of God expo...
RICHARD ROHR Man can only be certain about the present moment. But is that quite true either? Can he really know ...
MILAN KUNDERA Can I still write music? Do I have anything to say? Does anyone still care?
NINE INCH NAILS Nobody has a magic lamp which can tell you in advance whether what you say will be effective in pers...
MAURICE SAATCHI You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his quest...
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his que...
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his quest...
NAGUIB MAHFOUZ

More Samuel Butler

People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio b...
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.
SAMUEL BUTLER To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.
SAMUEL BUTLER If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.
SAMUEL BUTLER The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
SAMUEL BUTLER Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
SAMUEL BUTLER A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
SAMUEL BUTLER Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
SAMUEL BUTLER The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
SAMUEL BUTLER When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to di...
SAMUEL BUTLER The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anyth...
SAMUEL BUTLER Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
SAMUEL BUTLER The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in t...
SAMUEL BUTLER I went to the Bach Choir concert and heard Mozart's Requiem. I did not rise warmly to it. Then I hea...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of r...
SAMUEL BUTLER The money men make lives after them.
SAMUEL BUTLER The want of money is the root of all evil.
SAMUEL BUTLER All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
SAMUEL BUTLER For most men, and most circumstances, pleasure --tangible material prosperity in this world --is the...
SAMUEL BUTLER A lawyers dream of heaven; every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to r...
SAMUEL BUTLER In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
SAMUEL BUTLER People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is one long process of getting tired.
SAMUEL BUTLER Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
SAMUEL BUTLER A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage -- but they are also no less invalid...
SAMUEL BUTLER A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does...
SAMUEL BUTLER When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
SAMUEL BUTLER Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
SAMUEL BUTLER The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
SAMUEL BUTLER Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
SAMUEL BUTLER We are not won by arguments that we can analyze, but by tone and temper; by the manner, which is the...
SAMUEL BUTLER Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
SAMUEL BUTLER Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will...
SAMUEL BUTLER There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.
SAMUEL BUTLER The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
SAMUEL BUTLER I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
SAMUEL BUTLER Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging h...
SAMUEL BUTLER Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
SAMUEL BUTLER To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all.
SAMUEL BUTLER The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the...
SAMUEL BUTLER There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.
SAMUEL BUTLER What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer l...
SAMUEL BUTLER You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be b...
SAMUEL BUTLER Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
SAMUEL BUTLER If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wa...
SAMUEL BUTLER We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, ...
SAMUEL BUTLER There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
SAMUEL BUTLER Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.
SAMUEL BUTLER The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
SAMUEL BUTLER Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
SAMUEL BUTLER Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. A...
SAMUEL BUTLER There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every...
SAMUEL BUTLER I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more s...
SAMUEL BUTLER Life, they urge, would be intolerable if men were to be guided in all they did by reason and reason ...
SAMUEL BUTLER If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
SAMUEL BUTLER The public do not know enough to be experts, but know enough to decide between them.
SAMUEL BUTLER In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.
SAMUEL BUTLER It is tact that is golden, not silence.
SAMUEL BUTLER Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.
SAMUEL BUTLER All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
SAMUEL BUTLER From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
SAMUEL BUTLER Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.
SAMUEL BUTLER When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through eithe...
SAMUEL BUTLER Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderated...
SAMUEL BUTLER The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
SAMUEL BUTLER The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religi...
SAMUEL BUTLER A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism.
SAMUEL BUTLER The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to ap...
SAMUEL BUTLER Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it b...
SAMUEL BUTLER One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fightin...
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword
SAMUEL BUTLER All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond it...
SAMUEL BUTLER Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he pro...
SAMUEL BUTLER The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday.
SAMUEL BUTLER He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any m...
SAMUEL BUTLER A hen is only a egg's way of making another egg.
SAMUEL BUTLER To himself everyone is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that ...
SAMUEL BUTLER I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obl...
SAMUEL BUTLER The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
SAMUEL BUTLER The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.
SAMUEL BUTLER The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he no...
SAMUEL BUTLER A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.
SAMUEL BUTLER Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.
SAMUEL BUTLER Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even ...
SAMUEL BUTLER A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is a...
SAMUEL BUTLER God cannot alter the past, but historians can.
SAMUEL BUTLER Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and pro...
SAMUEL BUTLER Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as h...
SAMUEL BUTLER Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men t...
SAMUEL BUTLER For every why he had a wherefore.
SAMUEL BUTLER Then spare the rod and spoil the child.
SAMUEL BUTLER People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it ...
SAMUEL BUTLER If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole stor...
SAMUEL BUTLER Such as take lodgings in a head that's to be let unfurnished.
SAMUEL BUTLER An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when intr...
SAMUEL BUTLER Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
SAMUEL BUTLER The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
SAMUEL BUTLER Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the othe...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy -- but he who has s...
SAMUEL BUTLER Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he...
SAMUEL BUTLER It is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came f...
SAMUEL BUTLER He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.
SAMUEL BUTLER Science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.
SAMUEL BUTLER A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not se...
SAMUEL BUTLER The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not bein...
SAMUEL BUTLER The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
SAMUEL BUTLER The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
SAMUEL BUTLER Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.
SAMUEL BUTLER The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
SAMUEL BUTLER The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
SAMUEL BUTLER He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.
SAMUEL BUTLER Spontaneity is only a term for man's ignorance of the gods
SAMUEL BUTLER To be at all is to be religious more or less
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
SAMUEL BUTLER The extremes of glory and of shame, Like east and west, become the same No Indian prince has to his ...
SAMUEL BUTLER One who is proud of ancestry is like a turnip; there is nothing good of him but that which is underg...
SAMUEL BUTLER A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to ...
SAMUEL BUTLER The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.
SAMUEL BUTLER We payt a person the complement of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is the art of drawing sufficent conclusions from insufficient premises.
SAMUEL BUTLER 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
SAMUEL BUTLER Independence is essential for permanent but fatal to immediate success.
SAMUEL BUTLER All animals except man know that the ultimate point of life is to enjoy it. -Samuel Butler.
SAMUEL BUTLER The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.
SAMUEL BUTLER The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to...
SAMUEL BUTLER 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
SAMUEL BUTLER Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
SAMUEL BUTLER Silence is not always tact, and it is tact that is golden, not silence.
SAMUEL BUTLER Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
SAMUEL BUTLER When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
SAMUEL BUTLER Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds...
SAMUEL BUTLER All philosophies, if you ride them, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
SAMUEL BUTLER Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
SAMUEL BUTLER Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and des...
SAMUEL BUTLER People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or a...
SAMUEL BUTLER God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
SAMUEL BUTLER Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything els...
SAMUEL BUTLER Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
SAMUEL BUTLER The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that yo...
SAMUEL BUTLER We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
SAMUEL BUTLER Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely re...
SAMUEL BUTLER Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.
SAMUEL BUTLER Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficaci...
SAMUEL BUTLER Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent...
SAMUEL BUTLER We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the m...
SAMUEL BUTLER Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ h...
SAMUEL BUTLER A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
SAMUEL BUTLER It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has sh...
SAMUEL BUTLER A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's di...
SAMUEL BUTLER A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and...
SAMUEL BUTLER In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfyin...
SAMUEL BUTLER Words are clothes that thoughts wear
SAMUEL BUTLER The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is
SAMUEL BUTLER The three most important parts a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money and his religiou...
SAMUEL BUTLER All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its ...
SAMUEL BUTLER There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every...
SAMUEL BUTLER People care more about being thought to have taste than about being good, clever, or amiable.
SAMUEL BUTLER A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
SAMUEL BUTLER It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.
SAMUEL BUTLER If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
SAMUEL BUTLER Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
SAMUEL BUTLER Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
SAMUEL BUTLER An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has wri...
SAMUEL BUTLER He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most; God will take care that we do not enjoy it any m...
SAMUEL BUTLER Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man ma...
SAMUEL BUTLER All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.
SAMUEL BUTLER It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as tr...
SAMUEL BUTLER Neither have they hearts to stay. Nor wit enough to run away.
SAMUEL BUTLER Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises
SAMUEL BUTLER If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised t...
SAMUEL BUTLER I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill.
SAMUEL BUTLER There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
SAMUEL BUTLER For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
SAMUEL BUTLER It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and th...
SAMUEL BUTLER There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.
SAMUEL BUTLER Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a tr...
SAMUEL BUTLER Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in th...
SAMUEL BUTLER A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
SAMUEL BUTLER Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.
SAMUEL BUTLER For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one's destruction or their use. A standard both to buy an...
SAMUEL BUTLER Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
SAMUEL BUTLER Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, i...
SAMUEL BUTLER An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God ha...
SAMUEL BUTLER The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in ...
SAMUEL BUTLER To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched, And count their chickens ere they're hatched
SAMUEL BUTLER People are lucky and unlucky...according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been ...
SAMUEL BUTLER Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat; Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate
SAMUEL BUTLER