“You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
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Famous Samuel Butler Quotes
“A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.”
Source: The Way of All Flesh
“And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.”
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
“Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.”
Source: Erewhon Revisited
“Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.”
Source: Notebooks
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.”
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
“God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.”
“God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.”
Source: Notebooks
Source: The Way of All Flesh
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
“In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
Source: The Way of All Flesh
“Justice while she winks at crimes, Stumbles on innocence sometimes.”
Source: Hudibras: In three parts, written in the time of the late wars
“Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.”
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
“Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.”
Source: Notebooks
“Morality is the custom of one's country and the current feeling of one's peers.”
Source: The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
“Opinions have vested interests just as men have.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.”
Source: The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
“The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.”
Source: The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
“The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
“The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.”
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
“There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.”
Source: Notebooks
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Large Bold Edition
Source: Notebooks
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
“Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.”
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: 1874-1883
Source: The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
Source: The Essential Samuel Butler
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
Source: Notebooks: Selections Edited by Geoffrey Keynes and Brian Hill
Source: The Notebooks of Samuel Butler
Source: The Note-books of Samuel Butler: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Butler (Illustrated)
Source: Samuel Butler's notebooks