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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
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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
Translator
Writer
Notts
Cellarius
People
Unless
Obeying
Either
Atoms
Law
Nonsense
Talk
Obedience
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Fixed
Free
Rate
Ascribing
Science
Intelligence
Disobeying
Kind
Laws
Potentiality
More quotes by Samuel Butler
The history of art is the history of revivals.
Samuel Butler
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
God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.
Samuel Butler
The human intellect owes its superiority over that of the lower animals in great measure to the stimulus which alcohol has given imagination.
Samuel Butler
He dons are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler
Opinions have vested interests just as men have.
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
History is a bucket of ashes.
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
Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?
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
The only absolute morality is absolute stagnation.
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
Christ was only crucified once and for a few hours. Think of the hundreds of thousands whom Christ has been crucifying in a quiet way ever since.
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
Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
Samuel Butler
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
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
