Quotes by Samuel Butler

Samuel Butler

English poet

Alive from: 1612-1680

Category: Poets (Contemporary)

Quotes 1 till 15 of 131.

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

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  An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

• Samuel Butler

  

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  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.

• Samuel Butler

  

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  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.

• Samuel Butler

  

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  A genius can never expect to have a good time anywhere, if he is a genuine article, but America is about the last place in which life will be endurable at all for an inspired writer of any kind.

• Samuel Butler

  

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

• Samuel Butler

  

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  A lawyers dream of heaven; every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.

• Samuel Butler

  

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

• Samuel Butler

  

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  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

  

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  A skilful leech is better far, than half a hundred men of war.

• Samuel Butler

  

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

• Samuel Butler

  

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  All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

• Samuel Butler

  

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  All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.

• Samuel Butler

  

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  An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books.

• Samuel Butler

  

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  An empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed.