413 Quotes by Samuel Butler

Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such.

There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.

Whatsoever we perpetrate, we do but row; we are steered by fate.

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.

Nature. As the word is now commonly used it excludes nature's most interesting productions-the works of man. Nature is usually taken to mean mountains, rivers, clouds and undomesticated animals and plants. I am not indifferent to this half of nature, but it interests me much less than the other half.

Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it.

The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.