Samuel Butler Quote
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Music
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“Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Music
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“If there could be such a thing as the Mammon of Righteousness Christina would have assuredly made friends with it.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“If the wages of sin are death, what else, I should like to know, is the wages of virtue?”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“Be virtuous–and you will be vicious.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable; absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is, let alone the dullnesses of it and the pomposities of it.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Virtue
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“People are lucky and unlucky not according to what they get absolutely, but according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Wealth
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“And so there is no God but has been in the loins of past gods.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“Religion is an attempt to get an irrefragably safe investment, and this cannot be got, no matter how low the interest, which in the case of religion is about as low as it can be.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“Could any death be so horrible as birth? Or any decrepitude so awful as childhood in a happy united God-fearing family?”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“Christ: I dislike him very much; still I can stand him. What I cannot stand is the wretched band of people whose profession is to hoodwink us about him.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“God as now generally conceived of is only the last witch.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“It is the manner of gods and prophets to begin: “Thou shalt have none other God or Prophet but me.” If I were to start as a God or a prophet I think I should take the line: “Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a God. Thou shalt worship any d_____d thing thou likest except me.” This should be my first and great commandment, and my second should be like unto it.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“Mrs. Skinner told Jones that Mrs. N. was a very fascinating woman, and that Mr. W. was very fond of fascinating with her.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Sex
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“It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs. Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four, besides being very amusing.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Marriage
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“It is not nice to be wedded to anything–not even to a theory.”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Marriage
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“Marriage is distinctly and repeatedly excluded from heaven. Is this because it is thought likely to mar the general felicity?”
Samuel Butler
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Marriage
