Quotes by Samuel Butler

People are lucky and unlucky ... according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.

The great 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.

I keep my books at the British Museum and at Mudies.

Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes.

I can generally bear the separation but I dont like the leave-taking.

People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted and at seeing it practised.

Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.

Neither have they hearts to stay Nor wit enough to run away.

Every one should keep a mental wastepaper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it-torn up to irrecoverable tatters.

It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.

The test of a good critic is whether he knows when and how to believe on insufficient evidence.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.

If life must not be taken too seriously - then so neither must death.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

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

The tendency of modern science is to reduce proof to absurdity by continually reducing absurdity to proof.

There is one thing certain namely that we can have nothing certain therefore it is not certain that we can have nothing certain.

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

Faith is a kind of betting or speculation.

You can do very little with faith but you can do nothing without it.