Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler
Samuel Butlerwas an iconoclastic Victorian-era English author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh. He is also known for examining Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. Butler made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, which remain in use to this day...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 December 1835
In the midst of vice we are in virtue, and vice versa.
The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
That vice pays homage to virtue is notorious; we call it hypocrisy
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.
The extremes of vice and virtue are alike detestable, and absolute virtue is as sure to kill a man as absolute vice is.
Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness with others.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?/ About two hundred pounds a year.
Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.
Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.
One who is proud of ancestry is like a turnip; there is nothing good of him but that which is underground
Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game; true as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon.
Learning is like a great house that requires a great charge to keep it in repair
When the righteous man truth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness.