Quote

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

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
Whether
Kitten
Write
Condemned
Cannot
Literary
Power
Test
Writing
Cat
Men
Tests
Name
Inscription
Names
Inscriptions

More quotes by Samuel Butler

Image
There is no such source of error as the pursuit of absolute truth.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
The history of art is the history of revivals.
Samuel Butler
Image
The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
Samuel Butler
Image
Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
Samuel Butler
Image
Mr. Tennyson has said that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of, but he wisely refrains from saying whether they are good or bad things.
Samuel Butler
Image
History is a bucket of ashes.
Samuel Butler
Image
Letters are like wine if they are sound they ripen with keeping. A man should lay down letters as he does a cellar of wine.
Samuel Butler
Image
The wish to spread those opinions that we hold conducive to our own welfare is so deeply rooted in the English character that few of us can escape its influence.
Samuel Butler
Image
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.
Samuel Butler
Image
The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
Samuel Butler
Image
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler
Image
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
Samuel Butler
Image
Let us eat and drink neither forgetting death unduly nor remembering it. The Lord hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, etc., and the less we think about it the better.
Samuel Butler
Image
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.
Samuel Butler
Image
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler
Image
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
Samuel Butler
Image
Our own death is a premium which we must pay for the far greater benefit we have derived from the fact that so many people have not only lived but also died before us.
Samuel Butler
Image
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
Samuel Butler
Image
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
Samuel Butler