Our minds want clothes as much as our bodies.
Samuel Butler

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

People are always good company when they are doing what they really enjoy.
Samuel Butler

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.
Samuel Butler

People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Samuel Butler

People in general are equally horrified at hearing the Christian religion doubted, and at seeing it practiced.
Samuel Butler

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.
Samuel Butler

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
Samuel Butler

Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.
Samuel Butler

Some men love truth so much that they seem to be in continual fear lest she should catch a cold on overexposure.
Samuel Butler

The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick and exactly in the right places.
Samuel Butler

The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.
Samuel Butler

The Athanasian Creed is to me light and intelligible reading in comparison with much that now passes for science.
Samuel Butler

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

The Bible may be the truth, but it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Samuel Butler

The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
Samuel Butler

The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
Samuel Butler

The function of vice is to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
Samuel Butler

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too.
Samuel Butler

The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
Samuel Butler