Samuel Butler (poet): Making

“What did we else, but make a vow
To do we know not what, nor how?”

Samuel Butler (poet) Hudibras

Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Context: They'll say our bus'ness, to reform
The Church and State, is but a worm;
For to subscribe, unsight, unseen,
To an unknown Church-discipline,
What is it else, but before-hand
T'engage, and after understand?
For when we swore to carry on
The present Reformation,
According to the purest mode
Of Churches best reformed abroad,
What did we else, but make a vow
To do we know not what, nor how?

“Some force whole regions, in despite
O' geography, to change their site;
Make former times shake hands with latter,
And that which was before come after.
But those that write in rhyme still make
The one verse for the other's sake;
For one for sense, and one for rhyme,
I think 's sufficient at one time.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 23
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

Thinking , Sense , Change , Time

“With books and money plac'd for show
Like nest-eggs to make clients lay,
And for his false opinion pay.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto III, line 624
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

Money , Books , Falseness

“What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was prov'd true before
Prove false again? Two hundred more.”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto I, line 1277
Source: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

Falseness

“He that imposes an oath makes it,
Not he that for convenience takes it;
Then how can any man be said
To break an oath he never made?”

Samuel Butler (poet)

Canto II, line 377.
Source: Hudibras, Part II (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)

Suffering

“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)

Flying

“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

Men , Fools