Quote

Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.

Samuel Butler

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Butler
Age: 66 †
Born: 1835
Born: December 4
Died: 1902
Died: June 18
Farmer
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Translator
Writer
Notts
Cellarius
Total
Condemns
Virtue
Loudly
Rather
Abstinence
Half
Moderate
Use
Moderates
Good
Require
World
Seeds
Vices

More quotes by Samuel Butler

Image
The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation.
Samuel Butler
Image
How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?
Samuel Butler
Image
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
Samuel Butler
Image
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.
Samuel Butler
Image
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.
Samuel Butler
Image
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler
Image
Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game as true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.
Samuel Butler
Image
If God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him.
Samuel Butler
Image
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
Samuel Butler
Image
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.
Samuel Butler
Image
Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
Samuel Butler
Image
They say the test of [literary power] is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, Can he name a kitten? And by this test I am condemned, for I cannot.
Samuel Butler
Image
Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
Samuel Butler
Image
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
Samuel Butler
Image
The oldest books are only just out to those who have not read them.
Samuel Butler
Image
Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Butler
Image
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
Samuel Butler
Image
Business should be like religion and science it should know neither love nor hate.
Samuel Butler
Image
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.
Samuel Butler
Image
When a man is in doubt about this or that in his writing, it will often guide him if he asks himself how it will tell a hundred years hence.
Samuel Butler