FastSaying

Every one is a genius, more or less. No one is so physically sound that no part of him will be even a little unsound, and no one is so diseased but that some part of him will be healthy -- so no man is so mentally and morally sound, but that he will be in part both mad and wicked; and no man is so mad and wicked but he will be sensible and honourable in part. In like manner there is no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.


Samuel Butler

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I believe that there is a Matrix and... to be more accurate I am in the Pornography Matrix.
DEYTH BANGER Someone. Everyone. Anyone. No-one. One. One can't be everyone, but there isn't more than one everyon...
WILL ADVISE If a man is crossing a river and an empty boat collides with his own skiff, even though he be a bad-...
OSHO The most difficult character in comedy is that of a fool, and he must be no simpleton who plays the ...
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ...
BEN JOHNSON No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ...
HUNTER S. THOMPSON No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may ...
BEN JONSON Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs n...
LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA Please don't sing and dance," I whisper, but it's too late. He's snapping his fingers and doing this...
C.M. STUNICH The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays t...
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES He who cannot be considered a sensible man or being, is therefore with no doubt a fool.
KGOSIETSILE MARTIN TIMOTHY To stand on the
brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation—with no feeli...
ASK AND IT IS GIVEN No man will say, "There is no God" 'till he is so hardened in sin that it has
become his intere...
MATTHEW HENRY There is no lie that a man will not believe; and there is no man who does not believe many lies; and...
JOHN STERLING There is no lie that a man will not believe; and there is no man who does not believe many lies; and...
JOHN STERLING It does several things, one there is no shareholder accountability and there are no federal and stat...
BILL SIMMONS There is one death bed repentance recorded in the Bible (the thief on the cross), so that no one des...
MATTHEW HENRY So true a fool is love that in your will,Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and t...
ROBERT G. INGERSOLL No man in civil society can be exempted from the laws of it: for if any man may do what he thinks fi...
JOHN LOCKE In making our decisions, we must use the brains that God has given us. But we must also use our hear...
ALEXANDER MACLAREN In making our decisions, we must use the brains that God has given us. But we must also use our hear...
ALEXANDER MACLAREN Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th...
DEYTH BANGER A rich man without charity is a rogue; and perhaps it would be no difficult matter to prove that he ...
HENRY FIELDING He is not a good Christian who is not heartily sorry for the faults even of his greatest enemies. An...
JOHN TILLOTSON There is no one on earth more disgusting and repulsive than he who gives alms. Even as there is no o...
MAXIM GORKY Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. I believe that to execute a man for murder is to punish him immeasurably more dreadfully than is equ...
FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise...
IBN GABIROL There are four types of men in this world: 1. The man who knows, and knows that he knows; he is wise...
SOLOMON IBN GABIROL BEN JUDAH A just man is not one who does no ill, but he, who with the power, has not the will
PHILEMON There's no being out too late in Whileaway, or up too early, or in the wrong part of town, or unesco...
JOANNA RUSS There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that...
SAMUEL JOHNSON But even when I stop crying, even when we fall asleep and I'm nestled in his arms, this will leave a...
AMANDA GRACE Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done—that's courage. The one who feels no f...
PIERS ANTHONY For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him wh...
JOHN CALVIN For there is no one so great or mighty that he can avoid the misery that will rise up against him wh...
JOHN CALVIN The turnover of fashion is just so quick and so throwaway, and I think that is a big part of the pro...
ALEXANDER MCQUEEN The one who has become free from all mistakes, he has no superior over him; he needs no one to repri...
DADA BHAGWAN No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday ...
ELLEN GLASGOW Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, ...
SAINT AUGUSTINE No one has ever been able to discover how they make this subtle sound, and what is more, no one ever...
PAUL GALLICO Its impossible for friends and family to see one of them is truly gifted, they will always be blind ...
BRYAN INDIGO Ivanov: A naive man is a fool. But you women are clever enough to be naive so that it comes out in y...
ANTON CHEKHOV No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern; no idea is so modern
that it will not som...
ELLEN GLASGOW No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness w...
FRANCOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD There is no genius in life like the genius of energy and industry.
DON G. MITCHELL There is no genius in life like the genius of energy and industry
DONALD GRANT MITCHELL He who is engrossed in family life will never acquire knowledge; there can be no mercy in the eater ...
CHANAKYA Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will m...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Passion is the evil in adultery. If a man has no opportunity of living with another man's wife, but ...
SAINT AUGUSTINE No man is so exquisitely honest or upright in living, but that ten times in his life he might not la...
MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit sp...
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can offer will tempt them to work; so...
WILLIAM BOOTH War is no solution to peace.
BEN OAK The whole soul is in the whole body, in the bones and in the veins and in the heart; it is no more p...
GIORDANO BRUNO Some people are better at maths than others: no one thinks you can be 'taught' to be a mathe...
RACHEL CUSK A man who trusts everyone is a fool and a man who trusts no one is a fool. We are all fools if we li...
ROBERT JORDAN We Greeks believe that a man who takes no part in public affairs is not merely lazy, but good for no...
THUCYDIDES She was scarcely a year older than I was, dark-haired, slender, with a face that would break your he...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN There's no question that he's the best there is when he's healthy. He was an integral part of our de...
BILL COWHER What do we mean by setting a man free? You cannot free a man who dwells in a desert and is an unfeel...
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY One of the commonest and most generally accepted delusions is that every man can be qualified in som...
LEO TOLSTOY Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on,—how then? Can honour set ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It is an occult law moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings without lifti...
HELENA PETROVNA BLAVATSKY I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing ...
JOHN MUIR The debate will no doubt be heated and at times contentious. The debate in the Senate is only one pa...
TONY GARZA There is absolutely no doubt about it, and I may not be the one that does it, but the cloned child i...
PANAYIOTIS ZAVOS But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's consti...
JANE AUSTEN No man can be a genius in slapshoes and a flat hat.
BUSTER KEATON Whoever knows it also knows that in love there is no More and no Less; but that he who loves can onl...
MAX MULLER My No. 1 priority is growth in the economy. Tax reform will be our first and most important part of ...
STEVE MNUCHIN Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly onesel...
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR Now isn´t the time to change yourself to fit into the world... you should be changing the world to ...
ALEXANDRA BRACKEN If a man had more than one life, I think a little hanging would not hurt this one; but after he is o...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN There is perhaps no one who gives so much pain to a man but a woman who enters in his life as girlfr...
ANUJ SOMANY The best minds come from the most unexpected faces and places. There is no image for intelligence or...
SUZY KASSEM No one can be so welcome a guest that he will not annoy his host after three days.
PLAUTUS Life is not a game. Still, in this life, we choose the games we live to play.
J.R. RIM It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and th...
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN It is not the level of prosperity that makes for happiness but the kinship of heart to heart and the...
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN Boston is so laced with jerseys that you can be dressed head to toe in team apparel and no one will ...
DAVID WALTON No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as you keep a ...
MARIAN ANDERSON Although there is no solution that is easy, and there is no one formula that will work for everyone ...
MARGARET D. NADAULD We rightly scorn those who have no made use of their defects, who have not exploited their deficienc...
EMIL M. CIORAN No question about it, it is a glitzy scene but that is also part of Berlin,
KLAUS WOWEREIT Russia needs to accept that Poland is an independent player in this part of Europe and no doubt this...
JAROSLAW KACZYNSKI Life is a re-discovery.
BRIAN BLESSED If you think that life is a celebration full of party poppers and merry go rounds it's not it's a ga...
GARY F EVANS... Life Is a Misconception.
DEYTH BANGER Life is a desire!
DEYTH BANGER To trust someone you must firstly remember that it is a two way street that will go all the way if y...
GARY F EVANS... It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER True genius is not found in superior wisdom or intellect, but rather in the ability to unlock the Go...
TRAVIS J HEDRICK There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know ...
KARL WILHELM FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL Today A woman is one who tries to bring a man down. A man is one who has to keep that woman in check...
APURVA GAGLANI The fact is that no one is hated openly so much as one who is true to oneself consistently and no on...
ANUJ SOMANY Depend on no man, on no friend but him who can depend on himself. He only who acts conscientiously t...
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER And yet I love him. I love him so much and so dearly, that when I sometimes think my life may be but...
CHARLES DICKENS No man is poor who does not think himself so. But if in a full fortune with impatience he desires mo...
JEREMY TAYLOR

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 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 Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast Outrun the constable at last
SAMUEL BUTLER