Samuel Butler: Trending quotes (page 8)

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“A man can stand being told that he must submit to a severe surgical operation, or that he has some disease which will shortly kill him, or that he will be a cripple or blind for the rest of his life; dreadful as such tidings must be, we do not find that they unnerve the greatest number of mankind; most men, indeed, go coolly enough even to be hanged, but the strongest quail before financial ruin, and the better men they are, the more complete, as a general rule, is their prostration.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 66

Life , Men , Disease

“Life and death are balanced as it were on the edge of a razor.”

Samuel Butler

The Iliad of Homer, Rendered into English Prose (1898), Book X

Life , Death

“They [my thoughts] are like persons met upon a journey; I think them very agreeable at first but soon find, as a rule, that I am tired of them.”

Samuel Butler

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

Thinking , Personality

“They were gentlemen in the full sense of the word; and what has one not said in saying this?”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 17

Sense

“All eating is a kind of proselytising — a kind of dogmatising — a maintaining that the eater’s way of looking at things is better than the eatee’s.”

Samuel Butler

Eating and Proselytising
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter

Way

“He [the Philosopher] should have made many mistakes and been saved often by the skin of his teeth, for the skin of one’s teeth is the most teaching thing about one. He should have been, or at any rate believed himself, a great fool and a great criminal. He should have cut himself adrift from society, and yet not be without society.”

Samuel Butler

The Philosopher
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XI - Cash and Credit

Fools

“To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.”

Samuel Butler

Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler http://books.google.com/books?id=zltaAAAAMAAJ&q="To+do+great+work+a+man+must+be+very+idle+as+well+as+very+industrious"&pg=PA262#v=onepage, compiled and edited by A.T. Bartholomew (1934), p. 262

“But the main argument on which they rely is that of economy: for they know that they will sooner gain their end by appealing to men’s pockets, in which they have generally something of their own, than to their heads, which contain for the most part little but borrowed or stolen property.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 12

Men , Parting

“To put one’s trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.”

Samuel Butler

Providence and Improvidence, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

God , Way , Chance

“In the highest consciousness there is still unconsciousness, in the lowest unconsciousness there is still consciousness. If there is no consciousness there is no thing, or nothing. To understand perfectly would be to cease to understand at all.”

Samuel Butler

Equilibrium
Source: The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part V - Vibrations

Understanding

“We do not know what death is. If we know so little about life which we have experienced, how shall be know about death which we have not — and in the nature of things never can?”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

Life , Death , Nature

“A pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise: there are such things every day but we very seldom see them.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 11

Lovers

““Plants,” said he, “show no sign of interesting themselves in human affairs. We shall never get a rose to understand that five times seven are thirty-five, and there is no use in talking to an oak about fluctuations in the price of stocks. Hence we say that the oak and the rose are unintelligent, and on finding that they do not understand our business conclude that they do not understand their own. But what can a creature who talks in this way know about intelligence? Which shows greater signs of intelligence? He, or the rose and oak?”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 27

Way , Intelligence , Understanding , Business

“Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person; its importance not being fully recognised for some time.”

Samuel Butler

Genius, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XI - Cash and Credit

Time , Personality

“I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.”

Samuel Butler

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

Hate , Lying

“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.”

Samuel Butler

Hamlet, Don Quixote, Mr. Pickwick and others
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

Life , Death , Men , Memory

“The more unpopular an opinion is, the more necessary is it that the holder should be somewhat punctilious in his observance of conventionalities generally, and that, if possible, he should get the reputation of being well-to-do in the world.”

Samuel Butler

The Art of Propagating Opinion
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri

World

“The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.”

Samuel Butler

Public Opinions
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XVII - Material for a Projected Sequel to Alps and Sanctuaries

Water

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

Samuel Butler

Thought and Word, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books

“Argument is generally waste of time and trouble. It is better to present one’s opinion and leave it to stick or no as it may happen. If sound, it will probably in the end stick, and the sticking is the main thing.”

Samuel Butler

Argument
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri

Time