Samuel Butler Quotes

Property, marriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to the instinct; and woe to him who tampers with the banks while the flood is flowing.

Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

Words are clothes that thoughts wear

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.

When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.

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.

Happiness and misery consist in a progression towards better or worse; it does not matter how high up or low down you are, it depends not on this, but on the direction in which you are tending.

We can never get rid of mouse-ideas completely, they keep turning up again and again, and nibble, nibble — no matter how often we drive them off. The best way to keep them down is to have a few good strong cat-ideas which will embrace them and ensure their not reappearing till they do so in another shape.

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

Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.

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

If people who are in a difficulty will only do the first little reasonable thing which they can clearly recognize as reasonable, they will always find the next step more easy both to see and take.

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.

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