Quote

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

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
Unknown
Formerly
Mathematics
Equation
Memory
Illustration
Memories
Borrow
Science
Equations
Thing
Quantity
Inasmuch
Life
Shown
Heredity
Whereas
Quantities

More quotes by 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 law, nothing is certain but the expense.
Samuel Butler
Image
Though analogy is often misleading, it is the least misleading thing we have.
Samuel Butler
Image
Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler
Image
Man is God's highest present development. He is the latest thing in God.
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
It is death, and not what comes after death, that men are generally afraid of.
Samuel Butler
Image
The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
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
Friends are like money, easier made than kept.
Samuel Butler
Image
If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.
Samuel Butler
Image
He dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
There is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.
Samuel Butler
Image
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
Image
My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
Samuel Butler
Image
How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?
Samuel Butler
Image
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.
Samuel Butler
Image
Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature.
Samuel Butler