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
All truth is not to be told at all times.
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 is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.
For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.
Some men love truth so much that they seem in continual fear lest she should catch cold on over-exposure.
The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.
There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas.
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
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.