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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
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
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Notts
Cellarius
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Test
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Cat
Men
Tests
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Inscription
Names
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Whether
Kitten
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Condemned
Cannot
Literary
More quotes by Samuel Butler
Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.
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
Life is not an exact science, it is an art.
Samuel Butler
A lawyer's dream of heaven: every man reclaimed his property at the resurrection, and each tried to recover it from all his forefathers.
Samuel Butler
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler
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
In law, nothing is certain but the expense.
Samuel Butler
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Samuel Butler
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
Words are like money there is nothing so useless, unless when in actual use.
Samuel Butler
Be virtuous and you will be vicious.
Samuel Butler
Whereas, to borrow an illustration from mathematics, life was formerly an equation of, say, 100 unknown quantities, it is now one of 99 only, inasmuch as memory and heredity have been shown to be one and the same thing.
Samuel Butler
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
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
The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat, or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.
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
It is death, and not what comes after death, that men are generally afraid of.
Samuel Butler
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
Samuel Butler
I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.
Samuel Butler
Look before you leap for as you sow, ye are like to reap.
Samuel Butler
