Quotes by Samuel Butler

The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

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.

What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.

Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?

A mans friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

“Embryos think with each stage of their development that they have now reached the only condition that really suits them. This, they say, must certainly be their last, inasmuch as its close will be so great a shock that nothing can survive it. Every change is a shock; every shock is a pro tanto death. What we call death is only a shock great enough to destroy our power to recognize a past and a present as resembling one another. ”

“All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”

“[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind ones own, but one does not like anyone elses.”