Quotes by Samuel Butler

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

What runs through a person like water through a sieve.

Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.

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.

All philosophies if you ride them home are nonsense but some are greater nonsense than others.

The advantage of doing ones praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.

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

No matter how ill we may be nor how low we may have fallen we should not change identity with any other person.

Our self-conceit sustains and always must sustain us.

The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us like the Kingdom of Heaven rather than without.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten and to leave off fighting at once.

We grow weary of those things (and perhaps soonest) which we most desire.

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden not silence.

People care more about being thought to have good taste than about being thought either good clever or amiable.

Our latest moment is always our supreme moment. Five minutes delay in dinner now is more important than a great sorrow ten years gone.

Loyalty is still the same Whether it win or lose the game True as a dial to the sun Although it be not shined upon.

To put ones trust in God is only a longer way of saying that one will chance it.

It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable grounds.

A virtue to be serviceable must like gold be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.