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
To me it seems that youth is like spring, an over-praised season delightful if it happens to be a favored one, but in practice very rarely favored and more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes
When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.
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.
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
In matrimony, to hesitate is sometimes to be saved.
Eating is touch carried to the bitter end.
Still amorous, and fond, and billing, / Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.
Nothing is well done nor worth doing unless, take it all round, it has come pretty easily
If old Pontifex had had Cromwell's chances he would have done all that Cromwell did, and have done it better; if he had had Giotto's chances he would have done all that Giotto did, and done it no worse; as it was, he was a village carpenter, and I wi
I've known him for a long time, ... He's always been a man of integrity, always been a man of the community and the needs of the community, and the black community is going to stand behind him.
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
Besides 'tis known he could speak Greek, As naturally as pigs squeak
Through perils both of wind and limb, Through thick and thin she followed him
To himself every one is an immortal. He may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.