Quotes from Samuel Butler

Peter remained on friendly terms with Christ notwithstanding Christ's having healed his mother-in-law.

For Rhime the Rudder is of Verses, With which like Ships they steer their courses.

Besides so long as a man has not been actually killed he is our fellow-creature, though perhaps a very unpleasant one.

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.

The other masters and masters' wives were not forgotten. Alethea laid herself out to please, as indeed she did wherever she went, and if any woman lays herself out to do this, she generally succeeds.

Nu mai avea nimic de pierdut: bani, rude, reputaÈ›ie, toate disp?ruser? pentru mult? vreme, dac? nu pentru totdeauna. Dar împreun? cu ele îÈ™i mai luase zborul înc? ceva. M? refer la teama de ceea ce ar fi putut s?-i fac? oamenii.

Never see a wretched little heavy-eyed mite sitting on the edge of a chair against your study wall without saying to yourselves, "perhaps this boy is he who, if I am not careful, will one day tell the world what manner of man I was." If even two or three schoolmasters learn this lesson and remember it, the preceding chapters will not have been written in vain.

He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still Which he may adhere to, yet disown, For reasons to himself best known

Among those who came to visit me were some who had received a liberal education at the Colleges of Unreason, and taken the highest degrees in hypothetics, which are their principal study.

Cuando muera, lo haré con la plena y segura esperanza de que no habrá resurrección, pero esa muerte me aportará una paz absoluta.

Faith: You can do very little with it..But you can do nothing without it..!!

Possibly they would be consigned to the Hospital for Incurable Bores, and made to work at being bored for so many hours a day by the Erewhonian inhabitants of the hospital, who are extremely impatient of one another's boredom, but would soon die if they had no one whom they might bore--in fact, that they would be kept as professional borees.

All young ladies are either very pretty or very clever or very sweet; they may take their choice as to which category they will go in for, but go in for one of the three they must.

Boys and young men are violent in their affections, but they are seldom very constant;

He does not like this branch of his profession — indeed he hates it — but will not admit it to himself. The habit of not admitting things to himself has become a confirmed one with him. Nevertheless there haunts him an ill defined sense that life would be pleasanter if there were no sick sinners, or if they would at any rate face an eternity of torture with more indifference. He does not feel that he is in his element. The

The greater part of every family is always odious; if there are one or two good ones in a very large family, it is as much as can be expected.

How strange it was! He wanted to remember these things very badly; he knew he did, but he could never retain them; in spite of himself they no sooner fell upon his mind than they fell off it again, he had such a dreadful memory; whereas, if anyone played him a piece of music and told him where it came from, he never forgot that, though he made no effort to retain it, and was not even conscious of trying to remember it at all. His mind must be badly formed and he was no good.

At other times when not quite well he would have them in for the fun of shaking his will at them. He would in his imagination cut them all out one after another and leave his money to found almshouses, till at last he was obliged to put them back, so that he might have the pleasure of cutting them out again the next time he was in a passion.

Some people say that their school days were the happiest of their lives. They may be right, but I always look with suspicion upon those whom I hear saying this. It is hard enough to know whether one is happy or unhappy now, and still harder to compare the relative happiness or unhappiness of different times of one's life; the utmost that can be said is that we are fairly happy so long as we are not distinctly aware of being miserable. As

Theobald had proposed to call him George after old Mr Pontifex, but strange to say, Mr Pontifex over-ruled him in favour of the name Ernest. The word 'earnest' was just beginning to come into fashion, and he thought the possession of such a name might, like his having been baptised in water from the Jordan, have a permanent effect upon the boy's character, and influence him for good during the more critical periods of his life.

It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four.

I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; I dare say I could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once and no trying at all.

It has been said that though 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.

lit a fire, and was grateful for its warmth and company.