1
Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.Samuel Butler
2
All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.Samuel Butler
3
Embryos think with each stage of their development that they have now reached the only condition that really suits them. This, they say, must certainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be so great a shock that nothing can survive it. Every change is a shock; every shock is a pro tanto death. What we call death is only a shock great enough to destroy our power to recognize a past and a present as resembling one another. .Samuel Butler
4
[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.Samuel Butler
5
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.Samuel Butler
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The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.Samuel Butler
7
I remember one incident which bears upon this part of the treatise. The gentleman who gave it to me had asked to see my tobacco-pipe; he examined it carefully, and when he came to the little protuberance at the bottom of the bowl he seemed much delighted, and exclaimed that it must be rudimentary. I asked him what he meant." Sir, " he answered, "this organ is identical with the rim at the bottom of a cup; it is but another form of the same function. Its purposes must have been to keep the heat of the pipe from marking the table upon which it rested. You would find, if you were to look up the history of tobacco-pipes, that in early specimens this protuberance was of a different shape to what it is now. It will have been broad at the bottom, and flat, so that while the pipe was being smoked the bowl might rest upon the table without marking it. Use and disuse must have come into play and reduced the function its present rudimentary condition. I should not be surprised, sir, " he continued, "if, in the course of time, it were to become modified still farther, and to assume the form of an ornamental leaf or scroll, or even a butterfly, while in some cases, it will become extinct.Samuel Butler
8
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.Samuel Butler
9
It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can --it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.Samuel Butler
10
To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.Samuel Butler
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Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.Samuel Butler
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In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.Samuel Butler
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Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics.Samuel Butler
14
There are orphanages, " he exclaimed to himself, "for children who have lost their parents--oh! why, why, why, are there no harbours of refuge for grown men who have not yet lost them?Samuel Butler
15
Parents are the last people on Earth who ought to have children.Samuel Butler
16
If, again, the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain limitations to his will, then it only remains for him to make one assumption more, namely, that this mutual interdependence between the spiritual and the material is itself also dependent on law, and he has discovered the bond by which the science of the matter and the science of consciousness are united into a single whole.Samuel Butler
17
Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetimeSamuel Butler
18
If people who are in a difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clearly recognize as reasonable, they will always find the next step more easy both to see and take.Samuel Butler
19
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
20
We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with a mop; we expect them to help us to grip and dissect that which in ultimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow. Nevertheless there they are; we have got to live with them, and the wise course is to treat them as we do our neighbours, and make the best and not the worst of them.Samuel Butler
21
Words are clothes that thoughts wearSamuel Butler
22
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.Samuel Butler
23
We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.Samuel Butler
24
Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.Samuel Butler
25
I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong.Samuel Butler
26
Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ's having healed his mother-in-law.Samuel Butler
27
Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.Samuel Butler
28
A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.Samuel Butler
29
A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.Samuel Butler
30
We are not won by arguments that we can analyze but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.Samuel Butler
31
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.Samuel Butler
32
The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with greediness and gluttony.Samuel Butler
33
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.Samuel Butler
34
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
35
Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.Samuel Butler
36
The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.Samuel Butler
37
Mention but the word "divinity, " and our sense of the divine is clouded.Samuel Butler
38
Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism …Samuel Butler
39
Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.Samuel Butler
40
People are lucky and unlucky ... according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.Samuel Butler
41
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you but he will make a fool of himself too.Samuel Butler
42
I keep my books at the British Museum and at Mudies.Samuel Butler
43
Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes.Samuel Butler
44
I can generally bear the separation but I don't like the leave-taking.Samuel Butler
45
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted and at seeing it practised.Samuel Butler
46
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.Samuel Butler
47
Neither have they hearts to stay Nor wit enough to run away.Samuel Butler
48
Every one should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it-torn up to irrecoverable tatters.Samuel Butler
49
It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.Samuel Butler
50
The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.Samuel Butler
51
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.Samuel Butler
52
If life must not be taken too seriously - then so neither must death.Samuel Butler
53
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.Samuel Butler
54
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.Samuel Butler
55
The tendency of modern science is to reduce proof to absurdity by continually reducing absurdity to proof.Samuel Butler
56
There is one thing certain namely that we can have nothing certain therefore it is not certain that we can have nothing certain.Samuel Butler
57
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.Samuel Butler
58
Faith is a kind of betting or speculation.Samuel Butler
59
You can do very little with faith but you can do nothing without it.Samuel Butler
60
Whatso'er we perpetrate We do but row we are steered by fate.Samuel Butler
61
Friendship is like money easier made than kept.Samuel Butler
62
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.Samuel Butler
63
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it.Samuel Butler
64
All animals except man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.Samuel Butler
65
It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.Samuel Butler
66
An apology for the Devil - it must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.Samuel Butler
67
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.Samuel Butler
68
It has been said that though God cannot alter the past historians can - it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.Samuel Butler
69
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.Samuel Butler
70
To live is like to love: all reason is against it and all healthy instinct is for it.Samuel Butler
71
The public do not know enough to be experts yet know enough to decide between them.Samuel Butler
72
A lawyer's dream of heaven - every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.Samuel Butler
73
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.Samuel Butler
74
I do not mind lying but I hate inaccuracy.Samuel Butler
75
Life is one long process of getting tired.Samuel Butler
76
To live is like to love - all reason is against it and all healthy instinct for it.Samuel Butler
77
Man unlike the animal has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.Samuel Butler
78
Any fool can tell the truth but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.Samuel Butler
79
I reckon being ill is one of the greatest pleasures of life provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better.Samuel Butler
80
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.Samuel Butler
81
What runs through a person like water through a sieve.Samuel Butler
82
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.Samuel Butler
83
The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you but he will make a fool of himself too.Samuel Butler
84
All philosophies if you ride them home are nonsense but some are greater nonsense than others.Samuel Butler
85
The advantage of doing one's praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.Samuel Butler
86
All progress is based upon the universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.Samuel Butler
87
No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any other person.Samuel Butler
88
Our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us.Samuel Butler
89
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather than without.Samuel Butler
90
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten and to leave off fighting at once.Samuel Butler
91
We grow weary of those things (and perhaps soonest) which we most desire.Samuel Butler
92
Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden not silence.Samuel Butler
93
People care more about being thought to have good taste than about being thought either good clever or amiable.Samuel Butler
94
Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.Samuel Butler
95
Loyalty is still the same Whether it win or lose the game True as a dial to the sun Although it be not shined upon.Samuel Butler
96
To put one's trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.Samuel Butler
97
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable grounds.Samuel Butler
98
A virtue to be serviceable must like gold be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.Samuel Butler
99
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.Samuel Butler
100
A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.Samuel Butler