Samuel Butler Quotes

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Samuel Butler

Profession : Poet

Birth : December 4, 1835

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

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.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.

Samuel Butler

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Samuel Butler

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

Samuel Butler

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.

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

A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.

Samuel Butler

Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

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

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

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

Life is one long process of getting tired.

Samuel Butler