Samuel Butler Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

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

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

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

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

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.

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.

Life is one long process of getting tired.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

It is tact that is golden, not silence.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.

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

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.