Quote

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.

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
Failure
Single
Supportable
Challenges
Equanimity
Great
Arrived
Men
Adversity
People
Prosperity
Degrees
Lifetime

More quotes by Samuel Butler

Image
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler
Image
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
Samuel Butler
Image
Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.
Samuel Butler
Image
He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.
Samuel Butler
Image
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
Samuel Butler
Image
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.
Samuel Butler
Image
Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
Samuel Butler
Image
The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler
Image
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
Samuel Butler
Image
A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture at first, not second hand.
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
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.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.
Samuel Butler
Image
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.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
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.
Samuel Butler
Image
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
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
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Samuel Butler