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Samuel Butler Quotes
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Samuel Butler was the iconoclastic English author of the Utopian satirical novel Erewhon and the semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman The Way of All Flesh, published posthumously in 1903. Both have remained in print ever since. In other studies he examined Christian orthodoxy, evolutionary thought, and Italian art, and made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey that are still consulted today. He was also an artist. Wikipedia  

✵ 4. December 1835 – 18. June 1902
Samuel Butler photo
Samuel Butler: 232   quotes 5   likes

Samuel Butler Quotes

“Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room
The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall;
Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,
Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth:
O God! O Montreal!”

Samuel Butler

A Psalm of Montreal http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/011204.htm, st. 1 (1884)

God , Beauty

“There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out an through.”

Samuel Butler

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

Men , Hate

“Words impede and either kill, or are killed by, perfect thought; but they are, as a scaffolding, useful, if not indispensable, for the building up of imperfect thought and helping to perfect it.”

Samuel Butler

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

Help , Perfection

“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

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

Youth , Art , Knowledge , Evil

“If I die prematurely, at any rate I shall be saved from being bored by my own success.”

Samuel Butler

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

Success

“The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.”

Samuel Butler

The Fair Haven http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/fhvn10h.htm, Memoir of the Late John Pickard Owen, Ch. 3 (1873)

“Our choice is apparently most free, and we are least obviously driven to determine our course, in those cases where the future is most obscure, that is, when the balance of advantage appears most doubtful.”

Samuel Butler

Choice
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles

Appearance , Future

“A man is the resultant and exponent of all the forces that have been brought to bear upon him, whether before his birth or afterwards. His action at any moment depends solely upon his constitution, and on the intensity and direction of the various agencies to which he is, and has been, subjected. Some of these will counteract each other; but as he is by nature, and as he has been acted on, and is now acted on from without, so will he do, as certainly and regularly as though he were a machine.
We do not generally admit this, because we do not know the whole nature of any one, nor the whole of the forces that act upon him. We see but a part, and being thus unable to generalise human conduct, except very roughly, we deny that it is subject to any fixed laws at all, and ascribe much both of a man’s character and actions to chance, or luck, or fortune; but these are only words whereby we escape the admission of our own ignorance; and a little reflection will teach us that the most daring flight of the imagination or the most subtle exercise of the reason is as much the thing that must arise, and the only thing that can by any possibility arise, at the moment of its arising, as the falling of a dead leaf when the wind shakes it from the tree.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 25

Law , Exercises , Imagination , Birth

“I doubt whether any angel would find me very entertaining. As for myself, if ever I do entertain one it will have to be unawares. When people entertain others without an introduction they generally turn out more like devils than angels.”

Samuel Butler

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

People , Angels

“When he had left the room, I mused over the conversation which had just taken place between us, but I could make nothing out of it, except that it argued an even greater perversity of mental vision than I had been yet prepared for. And this made me wretched; for I cannot bear having much to do with people who think differently from myself.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 9

People , Thinking

“Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch cold on over-exposure.”

Samuel Butler

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

Love , Men , Truth , Fear

“The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar —
He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs.”

Samuel Butler

A Psalm of Montreal, st. 5

“Life is the gathering of waves to a head, at death they break into a million fragments each one of which, however, is absorbed at once into the sea of life and helps to form a later generation which comes rolling on till it too breaks.”

Samuel Butler

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

Life , Death , Help , Sea

“The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to say what truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.”

Samuel Butler

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

Truth , Idea

“We are so far identical with our ancestors and our contemporaries that it is very rarely we can see anything that they do not see. It is not unjust that the sins of the fathers should be visited upon the children, for the children committed the sins when in the persons of their fathers.”

Samuel Butler

Personal Identity
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IV - Memory and Design

Children , Personality

“God does not intend people, and does not like people, to be too good. He likes them neither too good nor too bad, but a little too bad is more venial with him than a little too good.”

Samuel Butler

Vice and Virtue, iii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

God , People

“All thinking is of disturbance, dynamical, a state of unrest tending towards equilibrium. It is all a mode of classifying and of criticising with a view of knowing whether it gives us, or is likely to give us, pleasure or no.”

Samuel Butler

Thinking
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part V - Vibrations

Pleasure , Thinking

“In art, never try to find out anything, or try to learn anything until the not knowing it has come to be a nuisance to you for some time. Then you will remember it, but not otherwise. Let knowledge importune you before you will hear it. Our schools and universities go on the precisely opposite system.”

Samuel Butler

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

School , Art , Knowledge , Learning

“Surely the glory of finally getting rid of and burying a long and troublesome matter should be as great as that of making an important discovery. The trouble is that the coverer is like Samson who perished in the wreck of what he had destroyed; if he gets rid of a thing effectually he gets rid of himself too.”

Samuel Butler

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

“The turtle obviously had no sense of proportion; it differed so widely from myself that I could not comprehend it; and as this word occurred to me, it occurred also that until my body comprehended its body in a physical material sense, neither would my mind be able to comprehend its mind with any thoroughness. For unity of mind can only be consummated by unity of body; everything, therefore, must be in some respects both knave and fool to all that which has not eaten it, or by which it has not been eaten. As long as the turtle was in the window and I in the street outside, there was no chance of our comprehending one another.
Nevertheless, I knew that I could get it to agree with me if I could so effectually buttonhole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have an easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I could bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner. My difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the argument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting to think that I ought to be allowed to convert the turtles — I mean I had no money in my pocket. No missionary enterprise can be carried on without any money at all, but even so small a sum as half a crown would, I suppose, have enabled me to bring the turtle partly round, and with many half-crowns I could in time no doubt convert the lot, for the turtle needs must go where the money drives. If, as is alleged, the world stands on a turtle, the turtle stands on money. No money no turtle. As for money, that stands on opinion, credit, trust, faith — things that, though highly material in connection with money, are still of immaterial essence.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

Men , Money , World , Faith

“Time is the only true purgatory.”

Samuel Butler

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

Time

“Moral influence means persuading another that one can make that other more uncomfortable than that other can make oneself.”

Samuel Butler

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

“The devil tempted Christ; yes, but it was Christ who tempted the devil to tempt him.”

Samuel Butler

Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler http://books.google.com/books?id=zltaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+devil+tempted+Christ+yes+but+it+was+Christ+who+tempted+the+devil+to+tempt+him%22&pg=PA76#v=onepage, compiled and edited by A.T. Bartholomew (1934), p. 76

Christ

“Many, if not most, good ideas die young — mainly from neglect on the part of the parents, but sometimes from over-fondness. Once well started, an opinion had better be left to shift for itself.”

Samuel Butler

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

Idea , Parent , Parting

“We know so well what we are doing ourselves and why we do it, do we not? I fancy that there is some truth in the view which is being put forward nowadays, that it is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

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

Truth , Spring

“Sin is like a mountain with two aspects according to whether it is viewed before or after it has been reached: yet both aspects are real.”

Samuel Butler

Sin
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

Mountain

“My notes always grow longer if I shorten them. I mean the process of compression makes them more pregnant and they breed new notes.”

Samuel Butler

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

“The world will, in the end, follow only those who have despised as well as served it.”

Samuel Butler

The World
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIV - The Life of the World to Come

World

“If people like being deceived — and this can hardly be doubted — there can rarely have been a time during which they can have had more of the wish than now. The literary, scientific and religious worlds vie with one another in trying to gratify the public.”

Samuel Butler

Populus Vult
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XII - The Enfant Terrible of Literature

People , World , Time

“It is hard upon the duckling to have been hatched by a hen, but is it not also hard upon the hen to have hatched the duckling?”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 19

“To try to live in posterity is to be like an actor who leaps over the footlights and talks to the orchestra.”

Samuel Butler

Posthumous Life, i
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIV - The Life of the World to Come

“Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.”

Samuel Butler

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

Life , Art , Drawing

“It is a distinguishing peculiarity of the Erewhonians that when they profess themselves to be quite certain about any matter, and avow it as a base on which they are to build a system of practice, they seldom quite believe in it. If they smell a rat about the precincts of a cherished institution, they will always stop their noses to it if they can.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 18

“The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it.”

Samuel Butler

Vice and Virtue, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality

“You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.”

Samuel Butler

Faith, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXI - Rebelliousness

Faith

“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

Pain , Idea

“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

Life , Children , People

“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

Truth , Lie , Lying

“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

Confidence

“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)

Universe , Training

“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

Girl , Boy , Clothes

“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

Men , Evil

“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&q=%22The+best+liar+is+he+who+makes+the+smallest+amount+of+lying+go+the+longest+way%22&pg=PA190#v=onepage
The Way of All Flesh (1903)

Way , Lying

“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

Love , God , Health , Nature

“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

Study , Learning , Drawing , 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's Notebooks http://books.google.com/books?id=cjk3AAAAIAAJ&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&pg=PA186#v=onepage (1951)

Business , Fight

“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)

Women , Men , People , Appearance

“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

People , Support

“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?

Hope