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
Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.
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
The world will only, in the end, follow those who have despised as well as served it.
Science, after all, is only an expression for our ignorance of our own ignorance.
Quoth Hudibras, I smell a rat; Ralpho, thou dost prevaricate
Quoth Hudibras, Friend Ralph, thou hast Outrun the constable at last
Besides 'tis known he could speak Greek, As naturally as pigs squeak
The thief. Once committed beyond a certain point he should not worry himself too much about not being a thief any more. Thieving is God's message to him. Let him try and be a good thief.
Everyone should keep a mental wastepaper basket, and the older he grows, the more things will he promptly consign to it.
Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself
Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
Compound for sins they are inclined to by damning those they have no mind to.
To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched, And count their chickens ere they're hatched