Samuel Butler

(4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) English novelist and critic, best known for his satirical utopian novel Erewhon (1872) and his semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh (published posthumously in 1903).

A definition is the enclosing a wilderness of idea within a wall of words.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, can he name a kitten?

Samuel Butler

Poetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one’s own, but one does not like anyone else’s.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.

Samuel Butler

If we attend continually and promptly to the little that we can do, we shall ere long be surprised to find how little remains that we cannot do.

Samuel Butler

The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.

Samuel Butler

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

Samuel Butler

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to them.

Samuel Butler