The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Opinion
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
—Samuel Butler
Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Society, Character, Work
A degenerate nobleman, or one that is proud of his birth, is like a turnip: there is nothing good of him but that which is underground.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Aristocracy
The money men make lives after them.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Money
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Knowledge
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.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Feelings, Life
People are lucky and unlucky … according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Acceptance, Realistic Expectations
People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Christianity
Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness with others.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Idleness, Work
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Loss, Losing, Humility, Losers, Success
Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds.
—Samuel Butler
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Greatness
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
—Samuel Butler
Topics: Friendship
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- James Baldwin American Novelist, Social Critic
- William Temple British Clergyman
- Paul Goodman American Novelist, Essayist
- Don Ward