Samuel Butler (poet) Quotes (81 quotes, page 2)

Samuel Butler (poet): 81 quotes1 like

Samuel Butler (poet) Quotes

“For what is worth in anything
But so much money as 't will bring?”

Canto I, line 465
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

“For those that run away and fly,
Take place at least o' the enemy.”

Canto III, line 609
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“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.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 159
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“I am not now in fortune's power:
He that is down can fall no lower.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto III, line 877
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“And poets by their sufferings grow;
As if there were no more to do,
To make a poet excellent,
But only want and discontent.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

"Miscellaneous Thoughts" in The Poems of Samuel Butler, Volume 2, Press of C. Whittingham, 1822, p. 269
"Fragments", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“For he could coin, or counterfeit
New words, with little or no wit;
Words so debas'd and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on;
And when with hasty noise he spoke 'em;
The ignorant for current took 'em;”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 273
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

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

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 463
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“I 'll make the fur
Fly 'bout the ears of the old cur.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto III, line 277
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“He was in LOGIC a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide
A hair 'twixt south, and south-west side:
On either which he would dispute,
Confute, change hands, and still confute,
He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a justice,
And rooks Committee-men and Trustees.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 65
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

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

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto III, line 309
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“He that complies against his will.
Is of his own opinion still.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto III, line 547. Sometimes misreported as "is convinced" instead of "complies"; reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 11
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

“This Light inspires, and plays upon
The nose of Saint like Bag-pipe drone,
And speaks through hollow empty Soul,
As through a Trunk, or whisp'ring hole,
Such language as no mortal Ear
But spiritual Eve-droppers can hear.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

“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.”

Samuel Butler (poet) Hudibras

Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: Shall we that in the Cov'nant swore,
Each man of us to run before
Another, still in Reformation,
Give dogs and bears a dispensation?
How will Dissenting Brethren relish it?
What will malignants say? videlicet,
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.

“Still amorous and fond and billing,
Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 687
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

“Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates;
The fumes of it invade the brain, And make men giddy, proud and vain;
By this the fool commands the wise, The noble with the base complies,
The sot assumes the rule of wit, and cowards make the base submit.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

From Miscellaneous Thoughts, lines 283-290 ; as contained in The Poetical Works of Samuel Butler: A Revised Edition with Memoir and Notes, Volume 2, Samuel Butler, G. Bell & Sons (1893), pp. 275-276