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Quotes from Part I — Samuel Butler

1612–1680 England

← All quotes by Samuel Butler

35 quotes

If he that in the field is slain
Be in the bed of honour lain,
He that is beaten may be said
To lie in honour's truckle-bed.

Part I (1663)

And bid the devil take the hin'most.

Part I (1663)

We grant, although he had much wit,
He was very shy of using it.

Part I (1663)

Who thought he 'd won
The field as certain as a gun.

Part I (1663)

And weave fine cobwebs, fit for skull
That's empty when the moon is full;
Such as take lodgings in a head
That's to be let unfurnished.

Part I (1663)

He had got a hurt
O' the inside, of a deadlier sort.

Part I (1663)

That each man Swore to do his best,
To damn and perjure all the rest!
And bid the Devil take the hin'most,
Which at this race is like to win most.

Part I (1663)

Or shear swine, all cry and no wool.

Part I (1663)

For Rhime the Rudder is of Verses,
With which like Ships they steer their courses.

Part I (1663)

His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell;
But oftentimes mistook th' one
For th' other, as great clerks have done.

Part I (1663)

The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting was grown rusty,
And ate into itself, for lack
Of somebody to hew and hack.

Part I (1663)

Beside, 't is known he could speak Greek
As naturally as pigs squeak;
That Latin was no more difficile
Than to a blackbird 't is to whistle.

Part I (1663)

These reasons made his mouth to water.

Part I (1663)

A skilful leech is better far
Than half an hundred men of war,
So he appear'd; and by his skill,
No less than dint of sword, cou'd kill.

Part I (1663)

For rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words,ready to show why,
And tell what rules he did it by;
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk,
For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.

Part I (1663)

Attribution

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