Samuel Butler

Explore inspiring quotes by Samuel Butler, a remarkable figure whose words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world.

105

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god

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money

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death

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truth

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art

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work

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life

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Featured Quotes by Samuel Butler

Some of the most memorable quotes from this author

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

— Samuel Butlerarchitecture

"The history of art is the history of revivals."

— Samuel Butlerart

"Life is not an exact science, it is an art."

— Samuel Butlerart

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

— Samuel Butlerart

"The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money."

— Samuel Butlerart

"The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it."

— Samuel Butlerart

All Quotes by Samuel Butler

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"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

architectureView Quote

"The history of art is the history of revivals."

-Samuel Butler

artView Quote

"Life is not an exact science, it is an art."

-Samuel Butler

artView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

artView Quote

"The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money."

-Samuel Butler

artView Quote

"The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it."

-Samuel Butler

artView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

beautyView Quote

"The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way."

-Samuel Butler

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"Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them."

-Samuel Butler

bestView Quote

"Priests are not men of the world it is not intended that they should be and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so."

-Samuel Butler

bestView Quote

"We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them."

-Samuel Butler

bestView Quote

"He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us."

-Samuel Butler

bestView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

businessView Quote

"To himself everyone is immortal he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"Death is only a larger kind of going abroad."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better."

-Samuel Butler

deathView Quote

"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

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

-Samuel Butler

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

-Samuel Butler

faithView Quote

"Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it."

-Samuel Butler

faithView Quote

"What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth."

-Samuel Butler

faithView Quote

"The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion."

-Samuel Butler

familyView Quote

"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself."

-Samuel Butler

fearView Quote

"Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure."

-Samuel Butler

fearView 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

foodView Quote

"Friendship is like money, easier made than kept."

-Samuel Butler

friendshipView Quote

"Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children."

-Samuel Butler

funnyView Quote

"God cannot alter the past, though historians can."

-Samuel Butler

godView 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

godView Quote

"Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"Theist and atheist: the fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"Let every man be true and every god a liar."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most. God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us."

-Samuel Butler

godView Quote

"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

greatView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

greatView Quote

"The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion."

-Samuel Butler

healthView Quote

"The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation."

-Samuel Butler

healthView Quote

"God cannot alter the past, though historians can."

-Samuel Butler

historyView Quote

"The history of art is the history of revivals."

-Samuel Butler

historyView Quote

"The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion."

-Samuel Butler

historyView Quote

"All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others."

-Samuel Butler

homeView Quote

"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

humorView Quote

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing."

-Samuel Butler

knowledgeView Quote

"The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it."

-Samuel Butler

knowledgeView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

learningView Quote

"In law, nothing is certain but the expense."

-Samuel Butler

legalView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

lifeView Quote

"Life is not an exact science, it is an art."

-Samuel Butler

lifeView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

lifeView Quote

"Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning."

-Samuel Butler

lifeView Quote

"A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends."

-Samuel Butler

marriageView Quote

"Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?"

-Samuel Butler

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"A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct."

-Samuel Butler

medicalView Quote

"Vaccination is the medical sacrament corresponding to baptism. Whether it is or is not more efficacious I do not know."

-Samuel Butler

medicalView Quote

"Friendship is like money, easier made than kept."

-Samuel Butler

moneyView Quote

"A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it."

-Samuel Butler

moneyView Quote

"The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion."

-Samuel Butler

moneyView Quote

"The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation."

-Samuel Butler

moneyView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

moneyView Quote

"Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order."

-Samuel Butler

moneyView Quote

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

-Samuel Butler

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