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Quotes from The Note-Books of Samuel Butler — Samuel Butler

1835–1902 England

← All quotes by Samuel Butler

121 quotes

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Feeling is an art and, like any other art, can be acquired by taking pains.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

The great characters of fiction live as truly as the memories of dead men. For the life after death it is not necessary that a man or woman should have lived.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of both.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to forget is to die.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

To live is like to love — all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

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

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Art has no end in view save the emphasising and recording in the most effective way some strongly felt interest or affection.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch cold on over-exposure.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

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

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

To himself every one is an immortal: he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

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)

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)

Attribution

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