Quote

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

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
Find
Hard
Sometimes
Seldom
Extremely
Obligation
Duty
Practice
Difficult

More quotes by Samuel Butler

Image
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.
Samuel Butler
Image
Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.
Samuel Butler
Image
We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
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
A man's friendships are, like his will, invalidated by marriage - but they are also no less invalidated by the marriage of his friends.
Samuel Butler
Image
Prayers are to men as dolls are to children. They are not without use and comfort, but it is not easy to take them very seriously.
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
Men are seldom more commonplace than on supreme occasions.
Samuel Butler
Image
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Samuel Butler
Image
The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.
Samuel Butler
Image
He was born stupid, and greatly increased his birthright.
Samuel Butler
Image
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
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
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
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
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
Samuel Butler
Image
The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
Samuel Butler
Image
A friend who cannot at a pinch remember a thing or two that never happened is as bad as one who does not know how to forget.
Samuel Butler