Samuel Butler Quotes

Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.

Samuel Butler

To me it seems that those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not.

Samuel Butler

All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.

Samuel Butler

All men can do great things, if they know what great things are.

Samuel Butler

The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being.

Samuel Butler

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

Samuel Butler

A blind man knows he cannot see, and is glad to be led, though it be by a dog; but he that is blind in his understanding, which is the worst blindness of all, believes he sees as the best, and scorns a guide."

Samuel Butler

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

Samuel Butler

Opinion governs all mankind, like the blind's leading of the blind

Samuel Butler

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.

Samuel Butler

An empty house is like a stray dog or a body from which life has departed.

Samuel Butler

There are two classes of people in this world, those who sin, and those who are sinned against; if a man must belong to either, he had better belong to the first than to the second.

Samuel Butler

Youth is like spring, an overpraised season.

Samuel Butler

Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.

Samuel Butler

The world will, in the end, follow only those who have despised as well as served it.

Samuel Butler