Samuel Butler (novelist) quotes - page 2

Samuel Butler was an English novelist, essayist, and satirist, best known for his works "Erewhon" and "The Way of All Flesh." His writing often challenged Victorian social norms and religious beliefs. He remains an influential figure in English literature and satire. Here are 360 of his quotes:

The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust. (Samuel Butler (novelist))

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself. (Samuel Butler (novelist))

A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

There are two great rules of life the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

The history of art is the history of revivals.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it. (Samuel Butler (novelist))

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

Samuel Butler (novelist)

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Samuel Butler (novelist)

Occupation: English Novelist
Born: December 4, 1835
Died: June 18, 1902
Quotes count: 360
Wikipedia: Samuel Butler (novelist)

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