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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

The lives of trees lie only in the barks,
And in their styles the wit of greatest clerks.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

’Tis in books the chief
Of all perfections to be plain and brief.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

What makes the breaking of all oaths
A holy duty?—food and clothes.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

And still be doing, never done.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

For blocks are better cleft with wedges,
Than tools of sharp or subtle edges,
And dullest nonsense has been found
By some to be the most profound.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

For fools are stubborn in their way,
As coins are harden’d by th’ allay;
And obstinacy’s ne’er so stiff
As when ’tis in a wrong belief.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

In all the world there is no vice
Less prone t’ excess than avarice;
It neither cares for food nor clothing;
Nature’s content with little—that with nothing.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Night is the Sabbath of mankind,
To rest the body and the mind.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

The souls of women are so small,
That some believe they’ve none at all;
Or, if they have, like cripples, still
They’ve but one faculty, the will.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

For discords make the sweetest airs.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

He that is down can fall no lower.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

With vollies of eternal babble.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

The feeblest vermin can destroy,
As sure as stoutest beasts of prey;
And only with their eyes and breath
Infect, and poison men to death.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

What makes a church a den of thieves?
A dean and chapter, and white sleeves.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Ah me! what perils do environ
The man that meddles with cold iron!
What plaguy mischiefs and mishaps
Do dog him still with after-claps.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

And as the French we conquer’d once,
Now give us laws for pantaloons,
The length of breeches and the gathers,
Port-cannons, periwigs, and feathers.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Full oft have letters caused the writers
To curse the day they were inditers.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

He could raise scruples dark and nice,
And after solve ’em in a trice;
As if Divinity had catch’d
The itch, on purpose to be scratch’d.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

He that has but impudence,
To all things has a fair pretence;
And put among his wants but shame,
To all the world may lay his claim.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

He that would win his dame must do
As love does when he draws his bow;
With one hand thrust the lady from,
And with the other pull her home.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Attribution

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