Quotes by 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.

The history of art is the history of revivals.

Life is not an exact science, it is an art.

Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.

The sinews of art and literature, like those of war, are money.

The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.

To give pain is the tyranny to make happy, the true empire of beauty.

The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.

Words are not as satisfactory as we should like them to be, but, like our neighbours, we have got to live with them and must make the best and not the worst of them.

Priests are not men of the world it is not intended that they should be and a University training is the one best adapted to prevent their becoming so.