Quotes by Butler, Samuel

"Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficulty in getting a hearing."

Butler, Samuel on benefactors   

"Birth and death are so closely related that one could not destroy either without destroying the other at the same time. It is extinction that makes creation possible."

Butler, Samuel on birth   

"The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them."

Butler, Samuel on books - reading
3 fans of this quote   

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

Butler, Samuel on bores and boredom   

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

Butler, Samuel on cheerfulness   

"It is tact that is golden, not silence."

Butler, Samuel on tact and tactfulness
7 fans of this quote   

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"Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence."

Butler, Samuel on tact and tactfulness
3 fans of this quote   

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

Butler, Samuel on taste   

"There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought."

Butler, Samuel on thoughts and thinking   

"There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth."

Butler, Samuel on truth   

"For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine."

Butler, Samuel on truth   

"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."

Butler, Samuel on understanding   

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

Butler, Samuel on value   

"The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds."

Butler, Samuel on vice   

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

Butler, Samuel on vice
3 fans of this quote   

"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."

Butler, Samuel on virtue   

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"Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal."

Butler, Samuel on virtue   

"A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy."

Butler, Samuel on virtue   

"Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he promptly consign to it."

Butler, Samuel on waste   

"When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented."

Butler, Samuel on water   

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"For Wealth are all things that conduce, to one's destruction or their use. A standard both to buy and sell, all things from heaven down to hell."

Butler, Samuel on wealth   

"Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it."

Butler, Samuel on wisdom   

"Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbors, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them."

Butler, Samuel on words   

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

Butler, Samuel on work   

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

Butler, Samuel on work
5 fans of this quote   

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

Butler, Samuel on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced."

Butler, Samuel on christians and christianity   

"If there is any moral in Christianity, if there is anything to be learned from it, if the whole story is not profitless from first to last, it comes to this: that a man should back his own opinion against the world s."

Butler, Samuel on christians and christianity   

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

Butler, Samuel on common sense   

"Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it."

Butler, Samuel on science   

"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."

Butler, Samuel on consciousness   

"The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not being a thief any more. Thieving is God's message to him. Let him try and be a good thief."

Butler, Samuel on crime and criminals   

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

Butler, Samuel on culture   

"To die is but to leave off dying and do the thing once for all."

Butler, Samuel on death   

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

Butler, Samuel on death   

"The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt."

Butler, Samuel on death   

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

Butler, Samuel on death