Samuel Butler: Quotes about people

Samuel Butler was novelist. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Samuel Butler: 464 quotes13 likes

“I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.”

Samuel Butler

Religion
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality
Context: Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctly more amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, this should be enough. I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.

“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 24

“But so engrained in the human heart is the desire to believe that some people really do know what they say they know, and can thus save them from the trouble of thinking for themselves, that in a short time would-be philosophers and faddists became more powerful than ever, and gradually led their countrymen to accept all those absurd views of life.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 27

“There are two classes of people in this world, those who sin, and those who are sinned against; if a man must belong to either, he had better belong to the first than to the second.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 26

“When I am dead I would rather people thought me better than I was instead of worse; but if they think me worse, I cannot help it and, if it matters at all, it will matter more to them than to me.”

Samuel Butler

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

“As a matter of course, the basis on which he decided that duty could alone rest was one that afforded no standing-room for many of the old-established habits of the people. These, he assured them, were all wrong, and whenever any one ventured to differ from him, he referred the matter to the unseen power with which he alone was in direct communication, and the unseen power invariably assured him that he was right.”

Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 26

“People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.”

Samuel Butler

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

“I should not advise anyone with ordinary independence of mind to attempt the public ear unless he is confident that he can out-lung and out-last his own generation; for if he has any force, people will and ought to be on their guard against him, inasmuch as there is no knowing where he may not take them.”

Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“People say that there are neither dragons to be killed nor distressed maidens to be rescued nowadays. I do not know, but I think I have dropped across one or two, nor do I feel sure whether the most mortal wounds have been inflicted by the dragons or by myself.”

Samuel Butler

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

“If we are asked what is the most essential characteristic that underlies this word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, to absence of such things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for other people.”

Samuel Butler

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

“The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.”

Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler's Notebooks http://books.google.com/books?id=cjk3AAAAIAAJ&q="The+most+important+service+rendered+by+the+press+and+the+magazines+is+that+of+educating+people+to+approach+printed+matter+with+distrust" (1951)

“To me it seems that those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 26

“It is far safer to know too little than too much. People will condemn the one, though they will resent being called upon to exert themselves to follow the other.”

Samuel Butler book The Way of All Flesh

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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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