Skip to content

Most artists, whether in religion, music, literature, painting, or what not, are shopkeepers in disguise. They hide their shop as much as they can, and keep pretending that it does not exist, but they are essentially shopkeepers and nothing else.

— Samuel Butler The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912)

Another quote →

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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)

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

The Fair Haven (1873)

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)

All Samuel Butler quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Butler (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.