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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.
Samuel Butler
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Samuel Butler
Age: 66 †
Born: 1835
Born: December 4
Died: 1902
Died: June 18
Farmer
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
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Science Fiction Writer
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Notts
Cellarius
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Inscriptions
Whether
Kitten
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More quotes by Samuel Butler
He that complies against his will, Is of his own opinion still.
Samuel Butler
People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
Samuel Butler
God and the Devil are an effort after specialisation and division of labour.
Samuel Butler
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.
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Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.
Samuel Butler
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
He was born stupid, and greatly increased his birthright.
Samuel Butler
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler
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
Half the vices which the world condemns most loudly have seeds of good in them and require moderate use rather than total abstinence.
Samuel Butler
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
The seven deadly sins: Want of money, bad health, bad temper, chastity, family ties, knowing that you know things, and believing in the Christian religion.
Samuel Butler
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
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
We are not won by arguments that we can analyse but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the man himself.
Samuel Butler
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.
Samuel Butler
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Samuel Butler
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
Samuel Butler
Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
Samuel Butler
[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.
Samuel Butler
