Samuel Butler: Trending quotes

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“Every new idea has something of the pain and peril of childbirth about it; ideas are just as mortal and just as immortal as organised beings are.”

Samuel Butler

New Ideas
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the prime of life.”

Samuel Butler

Future and Past
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

“Truth consists not in never lying but in knowing when to lie and when not to do so.”

Samuel Butler

Falsehood, i
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIX - Truth and Convenience

“Painters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is a good, simple, credulous organ — very ready to take things on trust if it be told them with any confidence of assertion.”

Samuel Butler

The Credulous Eye
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

“By a merciful dispensation of Providence university training is almost as costly as it is unprofitable. The majority will thus be always unable to afford it, and will base their opinions on mother wit and current opinion rather than on demonstration.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and Eve. "Which is Adam and which is Eve?" said one. "I do not know," said the other, "but I could tell if they had their clothes on."”

Samuel Butler

Adam and Eve
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XVI - Written Sketches

“The evil that men do lives after them. Yes, and a good deal of the evil that they never did as well.”

Samuel Butler

Reputation
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

“The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Ch. 39 http://books.google.com/books?id=wZAEAQAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22The+best+liar+is+he+who+makes+the+smallest+amount+of+lying+go+the+longest+way%22&amp;pg=PA190#v=onepage <br class="br">The Way of All Flesh (1903)

“If a man would get hold of the public era, he must pay, marry, or fight.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“To love God is to have good health, good looks, good sense, experience, a kindly nature and a fair balance of cash in hand.”

Samuel Butler

God and Man
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

“If a man has not studied painting, or at any rate black and white drawing, his eyes are wild; learning to draw tames them. The first step towards taming the eyes is to teach them not to see too much.”

Samuel Butler

Seeing
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

“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

Samuel Butler&#x27;s Notebooks http://books.google.com/books?id=cjk3AAAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22One+of+the+first+businesses+of+a+sensible+man+is+to+know+when+he+is+beaten+and+to+leave+off+fighting+at+once%22&amp;pg=PA186#v=onepage (1951)

“We meet people every day whose bodies are evidently those of men and women long dead, but whose appearance we know through their portraits.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 5

“We play out our days as we play out cards, taking them as they come, not knowing what they will be, hoping for a lucky card and sometimes getting one, often getting just the wrong one.”

Samuel Butler

The World, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?

“Happily common sense, though she is by nature the gentlest creature living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is apt to develop unexpected powers of resistance, and to send doctrinaires flying, even when they have bound her down and think they have her at their mercy.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 26

“A man’s style in any art should be like his dress — it should attract as little attention as possible.”

Samuel Butler

A Man's Style
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“Nothing will ever die so long as it knows what to do under the circumstances, in other words so long as it knows its business.”

Samuel Butler

The Roman Empire
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIII - Unprofessional Sermons

“They say the test of this [literary power] is whether a man can write an inscription. I say “Can he name a kitten?” And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.”

Samuel Butler

Literary Power
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“Whether the universe is really a paying concern, or whether it is an inflated bubble that must burst sooner or later, this is another matter. If people were to demand cash payment in irrefragable certainty for everything that they have taken hitherto as paper money on the credit of the bank of public opinion, is there money enough behind it all to stand so great a drain even on so great a reserve?”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)