Samuel Butler

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

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.

And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.

A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.

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

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.

When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.

Doubtless the pleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat.

Words are clothes that thoughts wear.

A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip: there is nothing good of him but that which is underground.

God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.

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.

The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.

God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.

The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.

There is no bore like a clever bore.

A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.

People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.

Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.

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

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

Doubtless the pleasure is as great Of being cheated as to cheat.

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

Oaths are but words and words but wind.

You can do very little with faith but you can do nothing without it.

Faith - you can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.

Arguments are like fire arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.

Always eat grapes downwards that is always eat the best grape first in this way there will be none better left on the bunch and each grape will seem good down to the last.

Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.

In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.

Always eat grapes downward that is always eat the best grapes first in this way there will be none better left on the bunch and each grape will seem good down to the last. If you eat the other way you will not have a good grape in the lot.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

People are always in good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

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.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

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.

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.

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

Keep your friendships in repair.

There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.

One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.

If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.

Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.

The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.

The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.

It is our less conscious thoughts and our less conscious actions which mainly mould our lives and the lives of those who spring from us.

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'

Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.

Memory and forgetfulness are as life and death to one another. To live is to remember and to remember is to live. To die is to forget and to forget is to die.

To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.

Do not be anxious about tomorrow for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the days own trouble be sufficient for the day.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still.

There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.

Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.

It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.

Exploring is delightful to look forward to and back upon but it is not comfortable at the time unless it be of such an easy nature as not to deserve the name.

In old times people used to try and square the circle; now they try and devise schemes for satisfying the Irish nation.

Any fool can tell the truth but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

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.

I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.

The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.

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.

Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

The greatest 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.

It is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is often exceedingly difficult to find this out.

No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.

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.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.

Be virtuous and you will be vicious.

To himself everyone is immortal he may know that he is going to die but he can never know that he is dead.

Those who have never had a father can at any rate never know the sweets of losing one. To most men the death of his father is a new lease of life.

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.

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.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.

Opinions have vested interests just as men have.

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.

I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.

The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense which is shared by all that is.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.