Quote

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.

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
Care
Scientist
Much
Knowing
Think
Class
Thinking
Knowledge
Whether
Reputed
Science
Greatly
Others
Classes
Two
Scientists

More quotes by 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
To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
Samuel Butler
Image
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler
Image
Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.
Samuel Butler
Image
It is not he who gains the exact point in dispute who scores most in controversy - but he who has shown the better temper.
Samuel Butler
Image
Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such.
Samuel Butler
Image
Neither have they hearts to stay, nor wit enough to run away.
Samuel Butler
Image
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler
Image
Let man be true and every god a liar.
Samuel Butler
Image
The three most important things a man has are, briefly, his private parts, his money, and his religious opinions.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
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
God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
Samuel Butler
Image
Business should be like religion and science it should know neither love nor hate.
Samuel Butler
Image
Oaths are but words, and words are but wind.
Samuel Butler
Image
The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.
Samuel Butler
Image
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
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
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