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
Through perils both of wind and limb, Through thick and thin she followed him
Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.
Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.
Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.
There are two classes [of scientists], those who want to know, and do not care whether others think they know or not, and those who do not much care about knowing, but care very greatly about being reputed as knowing.
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.
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
To swallow gudgeons ere they're catched, And count their chickens ere they're hatched
Besides 'tis known he could speak Greek, As naturally as pigs squeak
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.
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.