Samuel Butler citations (242 citations, Page 3)

Samuel Butler: 242 citations 2 J'aime

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Samuel Butler citations célèbres

“La vie est l’art de tirer des conclusions des prémisses insuffisantes.”

Samuel Butler

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
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“La vie est comme la musique: pour la composer on doit s’orienter par l’oreille, le sentiment et l’instinct, non par les règles. Néanmoins, c’est mieux de les connaître, parce que parfois elles aident dans des cas douteuses – quoique pas souvent.”

Samuel Butler

Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often
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“On peut tous faire des grandes choses, si on sait qu’est-ce qu’une grande chose.”

Samuel Butler

All men can do great things, if they know what great things are.
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“L'avantage de faire l'éloge de soi-même personnellement c'est qu'on peut insister autant qu'on veut sur précisément les aspects qu'on veut.”

Samuel Butler

The advantage of doing one’s praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
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“C'est beaucoup plus sûr de savoir trop peu que de savoir trop. Les gens condamneront les uns, mais ils en voudront aux autres à cause d'être obligés à se démener pour les atteindre.”

Samuel Butler

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.
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“Saint Antoine a tenté les démons autant qu’ils lui ont tenté, puisque son sainteté particulière était pour eux une tentation impossible de résister. A proprement parler, ce sont les démons qui devraient nous apitoyer, parce qu’ils ont été tentés par Saint Antoine et ils ont tombé, et il lui-même n’a pas tombé.”

Samuel Butler

St Anthony tempted the devils quite as much as they tempted him; for his peculiar sanctity was a greater temptation to tempt him than they could stand. Strictly speaking, it was the devils who were the more to be pitied, for they were led up by St Anthony to be tempted and fell, whereas St Anthony did not fall.
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Samuel Butler Citations

“La vie n’est pas une devinette qu’on doit résoudre, mais plutôt un nœud gordien que sera coupé tôt ou tard.”

Samuel Butler

Life is not so much a riddle to be read as much as a Gordian knot that will get cut sooner or later.
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vie

“La vie est une superstition. Pourtant, les superstitions ont quelque utilité: la coquille de l’escargot est une superstition, puisque la limace va très bien sans elle; mais un escargot sans coquille ne serait pas une limace, sauf qu’il avait aussi l’indifférence de la limace vis-à´vis la coquille.”

Samuel Butler

Life is a superstition. But superstitions are not without their value. The snail's shell is a superstition, slugs have no shells and thrive just as well. But a snail without a shell would not be a slug unless it had also the slug's indifference to a shell.
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indifférence , vie

“C'est facile d'avoir des avis plus justes quand tout le monde les a déjà.”

Samuel Butler

It's easy to have juster views when everybody else has them.
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monde

“Il a été souvent remarqué, je crois, qu'une poule n'était seulement que le moyen qu'avait un œuf de fabriquer un autre œuf.”

Samuel Butler

It has, I believe, been often remarked, that a hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
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Samuel Butler: Citations en anglais

“After having spent years striving to be accurate, we must spend as many more in discovering when and how to be inaccurate.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“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.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“No Erewhonian believes that the world is as black as it has been here painted, but it is one of their peculiarities that they very often do not believe or mean things which they profess to regard as indisputable.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 20

“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.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 26

“[Ideas] are like shadows — substantial enough until we try to grasp them.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“Thought pure and simple is as near to God as we can get; it is through this that we are linked with God.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.”

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Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“Heaven is the work of the best and kindest men and women. Hell is the work of prigs, pedants and professional truth-tellers. The world is an attempt to make the best of both.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“The greatest poets never write poetry. The Homers and Shakespeares are not the greatest — they are only the greatest that we can know. And so with Handel among musicians. For the highest poetry, whether in music or literature, is ineffable — it must be felt from one person to another, it cannot be articulated.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race. If it be urged that this is impossible under the present condition of human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, that we have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our power to destroy and that we are not only enslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our bondage.”

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Samuel Butler

Darwin Among the Machines
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part III - The Germs of Erewhon and of Life and Habit

“God's merits are so transcendent that it is not surprising his faults should be in reasonable proportion.”

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Samuel Butler

"Rebelliousness", Note-Books (1912)

“Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. If you look at it to admire it you are lost.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“Italians, and perhaps Frenchmen, consider first whether they like or want to do a thing and then whether, on the whole, it will do them any harm. Englishmen, and perhaps Germans, consider first whether they ought to like a thing and often never reach the questions whether they do like it and whether it will hurt. There is much to be said for both systems, but I suppose it is best to combine them as far as possible.”

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Samuel Butler

Italians and Englishmen
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIII - Unprofessional Sermons

“Art has no end in view save the emphasising and recording in the most effective way some strongly felt interest or affection.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“He is greatest who is most often in men’s good thoughts.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“Always eat grapes downwards — that is, always eat the best grape first; in this way there will be none better left on the bunch, and each grape will seem good down to the last.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“And should we not be guilty of consummate folly if we were to reject advantages which we cannot obtain otherwise, merely because they involve a greater gain to others than to ourselves?”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 25

“The dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“How is it, I wonder, that all religious officials, from God the Father to the parish beadle, should be so arbitrary and exacting.”

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Samuel Butler livre The Way of All Flesh

Source: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 23; this is one of the passages excised from <cite>The Way of All Flesh</cite> when it was first published in 1903, after Butler's death, by his literary executor, R. Streatfeild. This first edition of <cite>The Way of All Flesh</cite> is widely available in plain text on the internet, but readers of facsimiles of the first edition should be aware that Streatfeild significantly altered and edited Butler's text, "regularizing" the punctuation and removing most of Butler's most trenchant criticism of Victorian society and conventional pieties. Butler's full manuscript, entitled <cite>Ernest Pontifex, or The Way of All Flesh</cite>, was edited and issued by Daniel F. Howard in 1965. It is from this edition that this quote is derived; it was excised by Streatfeild in the first edition.