Samuel Butler Quotes

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

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

Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds.

I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill.

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

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.

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

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

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.

Neither have they hearts to stay. Nor wit enough to run away.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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