Samuel Butler citations (242 citations, Page 4)

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

“Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.”

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Samuel Butler

First lines of Butler's translation of The Iliad (1898)

“When we go up to the shelves in the reading-room of the British Museum, how like it is to wasps flying up and down an apricot tree that is trained against a wall, or cattle coming down to drink at a pool!”

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Samuel Butler

Mental and Physical Pabulum
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter

“Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to forget is to die.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“One can bring no greater reproach against a man than to say that he does not set sufficient value upon pleasure, and there is no greater sign of a fool than the thinking that he can tell at once and easily what it is that pleases him. To know this is not easy, and how to extend our knowledge of it is the highest and the most neglected of all arts and branches of education.”

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Samuel Butler

On Knowing what Gives us Pleasure, i
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIII - Unprofessional Sermons

“No one thinks he will escape death, so there is no disappointment and, as long as we know neither the when nor the how, the mere fact that we shall one day have to go does not much affect us; we do not care, even though we know vaguely that we have not long to live. The serious trouble begins when death becomes definite in time and shape. It is in precise fore-knowledge, rather than in sin, that the sting of death is to be found; and such fore-knowledge is generally withheld; though, strangely enough, many would have it if they could.”

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Samuel Butler

Fore-knowledge of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

“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.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“We are not won by arguments that we can analyse, but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.”

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Samuel Butler

Argument http://books.google.com/books?id=JHguFYrTEQ0C&q="We+are+not+won+by+arguments+that+we+can+analyse+but+by+tone+and+temper+by+the+manner+which+is+the+man+himself"&pg=PA329#v=onepage
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles

“Strange fate for man! He must perish if he get that, which he must perish if he strive not after. If he strive not after it he is no better than the brutes, if he get it he is more miserable than the devils.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 19

“I call it to mind and delight in it now, but I did not notice it at the time. We next to never know when we are well off: but this cuts two ways,--for if we did, we should perhaps know better when we are ill off also; and I have sometimes thought that there are as many ignorant of the one as of the other. He who wrote, “O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint agricolas,” might have written quite as truly, “O infortunatos nimium sua si mala norint”; and there are few of us who are not protected from the keenest pain by our inability to see what it is that we have done, what we are suffering, and what we truly are. Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 3

“Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home.”

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Samuel Butler

The Odyssey of Homer (1900), opening lines

“The limits of the body seem well defined enough as definitions go, but definitions seldom go far.”

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Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“I could hardly avoid a sort of suspicion that some of those whom I was taken to see had been so long engrossed in their own study of hypothetics that they had become the exact antitheses of the Athenians in the days of St. Paul; for whereas the Athenians spent their lives in nothing save to see and to hear some new thing, there were some here who seemed to devote themselves to the avoidance of every opinion with which they were not perfectly familiar, and regarded their own brains as a sort of sanctuary, to which if an opinion had once resorted, none other was to attack it.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 22

“To himself every one is an immortal: he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.”

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Samuel Butler

Ignorance of Death
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXIII - Death

“It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 20

“Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“I felt comparatively happy, but I can assure the reader that I had had a far worse time of it than I have told him; and I strongly recommend him to remain in Europe if he can; or, at any rate, in some country which has been explored and settled, rather than go into places where others have not been before him. Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon, but it is not comfortable at the time, unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 4

“This poem [The Ancient Mariner] would not have taken so well if it had been called “The Old Sailor.””

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Samuel Butler

The Ancient Mariner
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XV - Titles and Subjects

“One great reason why clergymen’s households are generally unhappy is because the clergyman is so much at home or close about the house.”

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Samuel Butler livre The Way of All Flesh

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

“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.”

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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.”

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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)

“It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“Silence,” it has been said by one writer, “is a virtue which renders us agreeable to our fellow-creatures.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 23

“But I did not yield at once; I enjoyed the process of being argued with too keenly to lose it by a prompt concession; besides, a little hesitation rendered the concession itself more valuable.”

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Samuel Butler

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 16

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

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Samuel Butler livre The Way of All Flesh

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

“Dullness is so much stronger than genius because there is so much more of it, and it is better organised and more naturally cohesive.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“Nothing is so cruel as to try and force a man beyond his natural pace.”

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Samuel Butler

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

“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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Samuel Butler livre The Way of All Flesh

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

“Slugs have ridden their contempt for defensive armour as much to death as the turtles their pursuit of it. They have hardly more than skin enough to hold themselves together; they court death every time they cross the road. Yet death comes not to them more than to the turtle, whose defences are so great that there is little left inside to be defended. Moreover, the slugs fare best in the long run, for turtles are dying out, while slugs are not, and there must be millions of slugs all over the world over for every single turtle.”

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Samuel Butler

Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)

“A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his own property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.”

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Samuel Butler

Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler http://books.google.pt/books?id=zltaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22A+lawyer's+dream+of+heaven:%22&dq=%22A+lawyer's+dream+of+heaven:%22&hl=pt-PT&sa=X&ei=_LPRUvmtGa_b7AbdjoCADQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwBjgK, compiled and edited by ‎A.T. Bartholomew (1934), p. 27