Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Vegetarianism, Animals, Nature
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
—Samuel Butler
We have all sinned and come short of the glory of making ourselves as comfortable as we easily might have done.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Happiness
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy—but he who has shown the better temper.
—Samuel Butler
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.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Reason, Understanding, Thought
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Truth
We all like to forgive, and love best not those who offend us least, nor who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Forgiveness
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Literature, Books, Reading
The advantage of doing one’s praising to oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Praise
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Friends, Friendship
Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Decisions, Indecision
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Alcohol
Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Community
There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Education
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.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Fools, Dogs
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Boredom
Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Wisdom
The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Reputation
The worst of governments are always the most changeable, and cost the people dearest.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Government
I don’t mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Deception/Lying, Lies, Lying, Honesty
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Knowledge
Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Adversity
An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or it may be found a little draughty.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Mind
A lawyer’s dream of Heaven: Every man reclaimed his own property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Law, Lawyers
It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held, and not in the dogma or want of dogma, that the danger lies.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Change
Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Morals
Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Food, Eating
The extremes of glory and of shame, Like east and west, become the same No Indian prince has to his palace – More followers than a thief to the gallows
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Shame
What runs through a person like water through a sieve.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Time Management
Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Virtues, Virtue
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
James Baldwin American Novelist, Social Critic
William Temple British Clergyman
Paul Goodman American Novelist, Essayist
Silas Weir Mitchell American Physician, Writer
Henry Eyring American Chemist