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Samuel Butler Quotes

1612–1680 England

Samuel Butler (February 8 1612 – September 25 1680) was an English satirical poet.

England
Poets
Satirists

Also known as: Samuel Butler (1612-1680), Hudibras

Random Samuel Butler quote

215 quotes

With mortal crisis doth portend
My days to appropinque an end.

Part I (1663)

Where entity and quiddity,
The ghosts of defunct bodies, fly.

Part I (1663)

I 'll make the fur
Fly 'bout the ears of the old cur.

Part I (1663)

For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.

Part I (1663)

His fear was greater than his haste:
For fear, though fleeter than the wind,
Believes 'tis always left behind.

Hudibras, Part III (1678)

Still amorous and fond and billing,
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.

Part III (1678)

He that imposes an oath makes it,
Not he that for convenience takes it;
Then how can any man be said
To break an oath he never made?

Part II (1664)

With crosses, relics, crucifixes,
Beads, pictures, rosaries, and pixes,—
The tools of working our salvation
By mere mechanic operation.

Part III (1678)

For now the field is not far off
Where we must give the world a proof
Of deeds, not words.

With books and money plac'd for show
Like nest-eggs to make clients lay,
And for his false opinion pay.

Part III (1678)

Videlicit,
That each man swore to do his best
To damn and perjure all the rest.

Each window like a pill'ry appears,
With heads thrust thro' nail'd by the ears.

Part II (1664)

'Tis not antiquity, nor author,
That makes truth truth, altho' time's daughter.

Hudibras, Part II (1664)

Quoth she, I 've heard old cunning stagers
Say fools for arguments use wagers.

Part II (1664)

Compound for sins they are inclin'd to,
By damning those they have no mind to.

And force them, though it was in spite
Of Nature and their stars, to write.

Part I (1663)

Like men condemned to thunderbolts,
Who, ere the blow, become mere dolts.

Hudibras, Part III (1678)

I am not now in fortune's power:
He that is down can fall no lower.

Part I (1663)

For what is worth in anything
But so much money as 't will bring?

Part II (1664)

Nor do I know what is become
Of him, more than the Pope of Rome.

Part I (1663)

Attribution

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