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
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.
The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.
The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence.
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.