413 Quotes by Samuel Butler

Priests are not men of the world; it is not intended that they should be; and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.

I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.

There is but one step from the Academy to the Fad.

Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.

Business should be like religion and science; it should know neither love nor hate.

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.

Life is one long process of getting tired.

When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.

There are two great rules in life, the one general and the other particular. The first is that every one can in the end get what he wants if he only tries. This is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is more or less of an exception to the rule.