Quotes by Samuel Butler
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.
We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.
The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.
Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.
The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.
All truth is not to be told at all times.
For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.
In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
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.
All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.
Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.
