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Quotes from Forty Thousand Quotations — Samuel Butler

1612–1680 England

← All quotes by Samuel Butler

89 quotes

It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an R in their names to eat an oyster.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

And he that makes his soul his surety,
I think, does give the best security.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

’Cause grace and virtue are within
Prohibited degrees of kin;
And therefore no true saint allows
They should be suffered to espouse.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

For brevity is very good,
Where we are or are not understood.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Cry out upon the stars for doing
Ill offices, to cross their wooing.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

For those that run away, and fly,
Take place at least o’ th’ enemy.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

For zeal’s a dreadful termagant,
That teaches saints to tear and cant.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Great wits and valours, like great states,
Do sometimes sink with their own weights.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

He that imposes an oath makes it,
Not he that for Convenience takes it.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

In all the trade of war, no feat
Is nobler than a brave retreat.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Through perils both of wind and limb,
Through thick and thin she follow’d him.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Brevity is very good, when we are, or are not, understood.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

As if Religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

He who does not make his words rather serve to conceal than discover the sense of his heart deserves to have it pulled out like a traitor’s and shown publicly to the rabble.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Oaths are but words, and words but wind.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

That conscience approves of and attests such a course of action, is itself alone an obligation.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Why should not conscience have vacation,
As well as other courts o’ th’ nation?
Have equal power to adjourn,
Appoint appearance, and return?

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Bloody wars at first began,
The artificial plague of man,
That from his own invention rise,
To scourge his own iniquities.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Drudgery and knowledge are of a kin,
And both descended from one parent sin.

Attributed Forty Thousand Quotations (1917)

Attribution

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