Quotes by Samuel Butler

We want words to do more than they can. We try to do with them what comes to very much like trying to mend a watch with a pickaxe or to paint a miniature with a mop; we expect them to help us to grip and dissect that which in ultimate essence is as ungrippable as shadow. Nevertheless there they are; we have got to live with them, and the wise course is to treat them as we do our neighbours, and make the best and not the worst of them.

Words are clothes that thoughts wear

Dont learn to do, but learn in doing.

We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.

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.

I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong.

Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christs having healed his mother-in-law.

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.

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide.

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.

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

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.

The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with greediness and gluttony.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.

The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.

Mention but the word divinity, and our sense of the divine is clouded.

Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently, and he lapsed ere long into an amiable indifferentism which to outward appearance differed but little from the indifferentism …

Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.