The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. — Samuel Butler Bounds Copy Share Image
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance. — Samuel Butler Arrogance Copy Share Image
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint. — Samuel Butler Clear Copy Share Image
Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children. — Samuel Butler Child Copy Share Image
The man who takes time to explain his mistakes has little time left for anything else — Samuel Butler Failure Copy Share Image
Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it. — Samuel Butler Enjoy Copy Share Image
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing should be taken too seriously — Samuel Butler Conviction Copy Share Image
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character. — Samuel Butler Character Copy Share Image
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but… — Samuel Butler Done Copy Share Image
Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great… — Samuel Butler Adversity Copy Share Image
And, after all, the Athanasian Creed is light and comprehensible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science. — Samuel Butler Books Copy Share Image
Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we… — Samuel Butler Compliment Copy Share Image
“tailor, if he did not drink and attended to his business, could earn more money than a clerk or a curate, while… — Samuel Butler Business Copy Share Image
“A credulous mind . . . finds most delight in believing strange things, and the stranger they are the easier they pass… — Samuel Butler Credulous Copy Share Image
“All young ladies are either very pretty or very clever or very sweet; they may take their choice as to which category… — Samuel Butler Ladies Copy Share Image
“Embryo minds, like embryo bodies, pass through a number of strange metamorphoses before they adopt their final shape.” — Samuel Butler Psychology Copy Share Image
God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour. — Samuel Butler Devil Copy Share Image
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction. — Samuel Butler Cases Copy Share Image
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds. — Samuel Butler Bounds Copy Share Image
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is… — Samuel Butler Death Copy Share Image
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth. — Samuel Butler Absolute truth Copy Share Image
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the kingdom of heaven, rather than without. — Samuel Butler Evolution Copy Share Image
What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth. — Samuel Butler Betting Copy Share Image
Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate. — Samuel Butler Accounts Copy Share Image
There is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. — Samuel Butler Gossip Copy Share Image
We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them. — Samuel Butler Easy Copy Share Image
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it. — Samuel Butler Conscience Copy Share Image
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. — Samuel Butler Art Copy Share Image
The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions. — Samuel Butler Conservative Copy Share Image
“To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.” — Samuel Butler Idle Copy Share Image
Spontaneity is only a term for man's ignorance of the gods — Samuel Butler Ignorance Copy Share Image
“I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong.” — Samuel Butler Confidence Copy Share Image
We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms. — Samuel Butler Atoms Copy Share Image
Opinion governs all mankind, like the blind's leading of the blind — Samuel Butler Leadership Copy Share Image
Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers. — Samuel Butler Character Copy Share Image
We are not won by arguments that we can analyze but by the tone and temper, by the manner which is the… — Samuel Butler Argument Copy Share Image
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at… — Samuel Butler Business Copy Share Image
Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it. — Samuel Butler Faith Copy Share Image
