Quote

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

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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
People
Clear
Sensible
Attention
Paying
Religion
Till
Wish
Atheist
Done
Wait
Thing
Atheism
Much
Wants
Sufficiently
Make
Waiting
Wishes

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
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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.
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Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
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Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
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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.
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A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
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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.
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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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Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
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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.
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
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It seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
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A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
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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.
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The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
Samuel Butler
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Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Samuel Butler
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There are two great rules of life the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.
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God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
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Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.
Samuel Butler
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Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Samuel Butler