413 Quotes by Samuel Butler

If [science] tends to thicken the crust of ice on which, as it were, we are skating, it is all right. If it tries to find, or professes to have found, the solid ground at the bottom of the water it is all wrong. Our business is with the thickening of this crust by extending our knowledge downward from above, as ice gets thicker while the frost lasts; we should not try to freeze upwards from the bottom.

Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.

It is death, and not what comes after death, that men are generally afraid of.

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.

Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness with others.

All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.

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.

The extremes of glory and of shame, Like east and west, become the same No Indian prince has to his palace - More followers than a thief to the gallows

Brigands will demand your money or your life, but a woman will demand both