Most people have never learned that one of the main aims in life is to enjoy it.

- Samuel Butler

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

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

The history of art is the history of revivals.

- Samuel Butler

Neither irony or sarcasm is argument.

- Samuel Butler

Every man's work, whether it be literature, or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

- Samuel Butler

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

- Samuel Butler

Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.

- Samuel Butler

Life is a quarry, out of which we are to mold and chisel and complete a character.

- Samuel Butler

An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

- Samuel Butler

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

- Samuel Butler

To live is like to love - all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.

- Samuel Butler

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

- Samuel Butler

Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.

- Samuel Butler

We shall never get people whose time is money to take much interest in atoms.

- Samuel Butler

Life is like music; it must be composed by ear, feeling, and instinct, not by rule.

- Samuel Butler

For truth is precious and divine, too rich a pearl for carnal swine.

- Samuel Butler

I really do not see much use in exalting the humble and meek; they do not remain humble and meek long when they are exalted.

- Samuel Butler

Don't learn to do, but learn in doing. Let your falls not be on a prepared ground, but let them be bona fide falls in the rough and tumble of the world.

- Samuel Butler

Logic is like the sword - those who appeal to it, shall perish by it.

- Samuel Butler