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Samuel Butler

81 quotes

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) was an English novelist, essayist, and critic whose iconoclastic wit challenged the Victorian establishment. His satirical novel *Erewhon* and the autobiographical *The Way of All Flesh* questioned received ideas about religion, family, and morality with a dry humor that was ahead of its time.

“There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.”

— Samuel Butler

Truth

All Quotes by Samuel Butler

“Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.”

— Samuel Butler

Respect

“The want of money is the root of all evil.”

— Samuel Butler

Money

“A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct.”

— Samuel Butler

Medical

“The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.”

— Samuel Butler

Health

“Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.”

— Samuel Butler

Fear

“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

God

“The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.”

— Samuel Butler

Great

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

— Samuel Butler

Business

“God cannot alter the past, though historians can.”

— Samuel Butler

God

“The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.”

— Samuel Butler

Science

“Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.”

— Samuel Butler

God

“Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.”

— Samuel Butler

Food

“If I die prematurely I shall be saved from being bored to death at my own success.”

— Samuel Butler

Death

“There is nothing which at once affects a man so much and so little as his own death.”

— Samuel Butler

Death

“The history of art is the history of revivals.”

— Samuel Butler

Art

“People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.”

— Samuel Butler

Religion

“Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.”

— Samuel Butler

Life

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

— Samuel Butler

Art

“Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.”

— Samuel Butler

Work

“God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.”

— Samuel Butler

God