Samuel Butler quotes

“A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing.”

— Samuel Butler

“Christ: I dislike him very much. Still, I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.”

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order.”

— Samuel Butler

“If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.”

— Samuel Butler

“Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.”

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“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

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“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.”

— Samuel Butler

“To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.”

— Samuel Butler

“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