Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler
Samuel Butlerwas an iconoclastic Victorian-era English author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh. He is also known for examining Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. Butler made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, which remain in use to this day...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 December 1835
When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.
Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both
Whatsoever we perpetrate, we do but row; we are steered by fate.
The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
The foundations which we would dig about and find are within us, like the kingdom of heaven, rather than without.
We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness with others.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?/ About two hundred pounds a year.
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.
If the headache would only precede the intoxication, alcoholism would be a virtue.
There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the rule.