Samuel Butler

“tailor, if he did not drink and attended to his business, could earn more money than a clerk”

— Samuel Butler

Life is one long process of getting tired.

— Samuel Butler

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all…

— Samuel Butler

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we…

— Samuel Butler

Silence is not always tact, and it is tact that is golden - not silence

— Samuel Butler

There are two classes [of scientists], those who want to know, and do not care whether others think they know or not,…

— Samuel Butler

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

— Samuel Butler

“Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.”

— Samuel Butler

Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

— Samuel Butler

How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?

— Samuel Butler

Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds

— Samuel Butler

To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.

— Samuel Butler

Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.

— Samuel Butler

The phrase 'unconscious humor' is the one contribution I have made to the current literature of the day.

— Samuel Butler

I am the enfant terrible of literature and science

— Samuel Butler

“A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that…

— Samuel Butler

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'

— Samuel Butler

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

— Samuel Butler

Letters are like wine; if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a…

— Samuel Butler

All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

— Samuel Butler

There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.

— Samuel Butler

The want of money is the root of all evil.

— Samuel Butler

Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on

— Samuel Butler

This world is like Noah's Ark. In which few men but many beasts embark.

— Samuel Butler

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

— Samuel Butler