Skip to content

Samuel Butler Quotes

1835–1902 England

Samuel Butler (December 4, 1835 – June 18, 1902) was a British satirist, most famous for his novels Erewhon and The Way of All Flesh.

England
Biographers
Novelists
Satirists
Translators

Also known as: Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

Random Samuel Butler quote

186 quotes

Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not to do so.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma, or want of dogma, that the danger lies.

The Way Of All Flesh (1903)

Honesty consists not in never stealing but in knowing where to stop in stealing, and how to make good use of what one does steal.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Nothing is so cruel as to try and force a man beyond his natural pace.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.

I have heard of a man exclaiming "I am an atheist, thank God!"

A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip. There is nothing good of him but that which is underground.

It is far safer to know too little than too much. People will condemn the one, though they will resent being called upon to exert themselves to follow the other.

The Way of All Flesh (1903)

Many, if not most, good ideas die young — mainly from neglect on the part of the parents, but sometimes from over-fondness. Once well started, an opinion had better be left to shift for itself.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

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

The world will, in the end, follow only those who have despised as well as served it.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

To put one's trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

The dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

A great portrait is always more a portrait of the painter than of the painted.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

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

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Words are like money; there is nothing so useless, unless when in actual use.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Nothing will ever die so long as it knows what to do under the circumstances, in other words so long as it knows its business.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through.

The Iliad of Homer (1898)

All men can do great things, if they know what great things are.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Butler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.