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My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.

Samuel Butler

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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
Keep
Book
People
Main
Mines
Mine
Rooms
Books
Wish

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.
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Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
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Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.
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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.
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In practice it is seldom very hard to do one's duty when one knows what it is, but it is sometimes extremely difficult to find this out.
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Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
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An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
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People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
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The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
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A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.
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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.
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Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
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If a man knows not life which he hath seen, how shall he know death, which he hath not seen?
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History is a bucket of ashes.
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The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.
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The history of art is the history of revivals.
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Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler
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The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
Samuel Butler
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Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such.
Samuel Butler
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The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler