Quotes by Samuel Butler
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.
Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.
There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.
God and the Devil are an effort after specialization and the division of labor.
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
The history of art is the history of revivals.
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.
Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.
Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
