It has beeen said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly. - Samuel Butler
It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something. - Samuel Butler
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore. - Samuel Butler
Words are clothes that thoughts wear - Samuel Butler
Friendship is like money, easier made than kept. - Samuel Butler
If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do. - Samuel Butler
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being good, clever, or amiable. - Samuel Butler
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature. - Samuel Butler
The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them. - Samuel Butler
Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics. - Samuel Butler
All animals except man know that the ultimate of life is to enjoy it. - Samuel Butler
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once. - Samuel Butler
To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious. - Samuel Butler
[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's. - Samuel Butler
All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it. - Samuel Butler
The three most important parts a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money and his religious beliefs. - Samuel Butler
Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. - Samuel Butler
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way. - Samuel Butler
Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds. - Samuel Butler
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable. - 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
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. - Samuel Butler
He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most; God will take care that we do not enjoy it any more than is good for us. - Samuel Butler
Logic is like the sword: those who appeal to it shall perish by it. - Samuel Butler
Conscience is thoroughly well bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it. - Samuel Butler
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. - Samuel Butler
It has been said that although God cannot alter the past, historians can --it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence. - Samuel Butler
All progress is based on a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. - Samuel Butler
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue. - Samuel Butler
The world is naturally averse to all truth it sees or hears but swallows nonsense and a lie with greediness and gluttony. - Samuel Butler
Life is like playing the violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. - Samuel Butler
Neither have they hearts to stay. Nor wit enough to run away. - Samuel Butler
An honest god's the noblest work of man. - Samuel Butler
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg. - Samuel Butler
The difference between God and the historians consists above all in the fact that God cannot alter the past. - Samuel Butler
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. - Samuel Butler
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
I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong. - Samuel Butler
I consider being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill. - Samuel Butler
The voice of the Lord is the voice of common sense, which is shared by all that is - Samuel Butler
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them. - Samuel Butler
Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ's having healed his mother-in-law. - Samuel Butler
We all love best not those who offend us least, nor those who have done most for us, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them. - Samuel Butler
Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty. - Samuel Butler
Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it. - Samuel Butler
We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them. - Samuel Butler
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. - Samuel Butler
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard only one side of the case; God has written all the books. - Samuel Butler
He that complies against his will is of the same opinion still. - Samuel Butler
We are not won by arguments that we can analyze but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself. - Samuel Butler
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy. - Samuel Butler
Life is one long process of getting tired. - Samuel Butler
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. - Samuel Butler
Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it. - Samuel Butler
There are two great rules of life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule. - Samuel Butler
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them. - Samuel Butler
Parents are the last people on Earth who ought to have children. - Samuel Butler
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself. - Samuel Butler
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. - Samuel Butler
Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. - Samuel Butler
Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. - Samuel Butler
Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them. - Samuel Butler
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly. - Samuel Butler
All philosophies, if you ride them, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others. - Samuel Butler