Samuel Butler Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Samuel Butler's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Author Samuel Butler's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 152 quotes on this page collected since December 4, 1835! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
  • Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime

    TheWay of All Flesh ch. 24 (1903)
  • The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

    Further Extracts from Notebooks (1934) p. 93
  • It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.

    Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4366, Delphi Classics
  • My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.

    Samuel Butler, Hans-Peter Breuer (1984). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883”, Univ Pr of Amer
  • The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

    Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.49, ReadHowYouWant.com
  • Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.

    Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4163, Delphi Classics
  • All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

    Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.4349, Delphi Classics
  • Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such.

  • Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

    Samuel Butler (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)”, p.425, Delphi Classics
  • Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

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

    Samuel Butler (1951). “Samuel Butler's notebooks”
  • In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.

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

    Notebooks (1912) Ch. XIV
  • To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

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

    Samuel Butler (1951). “Notebooks”
  • They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?"

    "The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (Part VII: On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books)". Book edited by Henry Festing Jones, 1917.
  • 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 (1950). “The Essential Samuel Butler”, London : J. Cape
  • 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, Hans-Peter Breuer (1984). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883”, Univ Pr of Amer
  • God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

    Samuel Butler (1950). “The Essential Samuel Butler”
  • Be virtuous and you will be vicious.

    Samuel Butler (1951). “Samuel Butler's notebooks”
  • The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

    Samuel Butler (1950). “The Essential Samuel Butler”
  • 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 (1951). “Samuel Butler's notebooks”
  • Let man be true and every god a liar.

    "Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill".
  • 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 (2016). “The Way of All Flesh”, p.57, Samuel Butler
  • 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 (2014). “The Notebooks of Samuel Butler”, p.377, The Floating Press
  • Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

    Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.197, ReadHowYouWant.com
  • God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.

    "The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Large Edition".
  • There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.

    Samuel Butler (2014). “The Notebooks of Samuel Butler”, p.374, The Floating Press
  • 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 (1951). “Samuel Butler's notebooks”
  • [P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.

    Samuel Butler (2008). “The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Large Edition”, p.105, ReadHowYouWant.com
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 152 quotes from the Author Samuel Butler, starting from December 4, 1835! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!