Samuel Butler Quotes

Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

Words are clothes that thoughts wear

To do great work one must be very idle as well as very industrious.

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

Prayers are to men as dolls are to children.

[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.

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

His knowledge was not far behind
The knight's, but of another kind,
And he another way came by't ;
Some call it Gifts, and some New Light.
A lib'ral art, that costs no pains
Of study, industry, or brains.

Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

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.

In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.

Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics.

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.

Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.