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To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define 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
Impossible
Better
Ever
Childish
Define
Deny
Realize
Realizing

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
Samuel Butler
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God was satisfied with his own work, and that is fatal.
Samuel Butler
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Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
Samuel Butler
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Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
Samuel Butler
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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
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If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
Samuel Butler
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When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
Samuel Butler
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Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
Samuel Butler
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The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
Samuel Butler
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Nobody shoots at Santa Claus.
Samuel Butler
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Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler
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Money is the last enemy that shall never be subdued. While there is flesh there is money or the want of money, but money is always on the brain so long as there is a brain in reasonable order.
Samuel Butler
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Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
Samuel Butler
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Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
Samuel Butler
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Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
Samuel Butler
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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.
Samuel Butler
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I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.
Samuel Butler
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Inspiration is never genuine if it is known as inspiration at the time. True inspiration always steals on a person its importance not being fully recognized for some time.
Samuel Butler