“Is life worth living? This is a question for an embryo not for a man.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
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Famous Samuel Butler Quotes
“Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.”
Source: Hudibras; with notes by T.R. Nash
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“Brigands demand your money or your life; women require both.”
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Large Edition
“Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.”
Source: The Way of All Flesh
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.”
“Be virtuous and you will be vicious.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.”
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Comfort Edition
Source: The Way of All Flesh
Source: A critical and annotated edition of Samuel Butler's Erewhon
“Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.”
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
“The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.”
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883
Source: The Way of All Flesh
“All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.”
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: The Way of All Flesh
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.”
Source: A critical and annotated edition of Samuel Butler's Erewhon
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
“Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.”
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
“The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.”
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883
“The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“There is no bore like a clever bore.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.”
Source: The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
“There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“Women can stand a beating except when it is with their own weapons.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks