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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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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
Historian
Tolerate
Since
Existence
History
Cannot
Past
Historians
Change
Obliged

More quotes by Samuel Butler

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We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
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The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
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Christ and The Church: If he were to apply for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty, adultery and desertion, he would probably get one.
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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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The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
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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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If a man knows not life which he hath seen, how shall he know death, which he hath not seen?
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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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There should be asylums for habitual teetotalers, but they would probably relapse into teetotalism as soon as they got out.
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The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
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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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Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
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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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History is a bucket of ashes.
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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
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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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He is greatest who is most often in men's good thoughts.
Samuel Butler
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When people talk of atoms obeying fixed laws, they are either ascribing some kind of intelligence and free will to atoms or they are talking nonsense. There is no obedience unless there is at any rate a potentiality of disobeying.
Samuel Butler
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No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
Samuel Butler
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A drunkard would not give money to sober people. He said they would only eat it, and buy clothes and send their children to school with it.
Samuel Butler