Quotes by Samuel Butler

"The history of art is the history of revivals."

"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."

"Oaths are but words, and words are but wind."

"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."

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

"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself."

"Parents are the last people on earth who ought to have children."

"God cannot alter the past, though historians can."

"The worst thing that can happen to a man is to lose his money, the next worst his health, the next worst his reputation."

"A sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from the commission of all sins, or nearly all, save those worth committing."

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

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

"Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him."

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

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

"All truth is not to be told at all times."

"In law, nothing is certain but the expense."

"A physician's physiology has much the same relation to his power of healing as a cleric's divinity has to his power of influencing conduct."

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

"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg."

"Self-preservation is the first law of nature."