Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Contexto: All we know is, that even the humblest dead may live along after all trace of the body has disappeared; we see them doing it in the bodies and memories of these that come after them; and not a few live so much longer and more effectually than is desirable, that it has been necessary to get rid of them by Act of Parliament. It is love that alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in ourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern. Our concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them that enter into life — although we know it not.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902): Frases em inglês (página 2)
Frases em inglês.
Darwin Among the Machines
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part III - The Germs of Erewhon and of Life and Habit
Contexto: Day by day, however, the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them; more men are daily bound down as slaves to tend them, more men are daily devoting the energies of their whole lives to the development of mechanical life. The upshot is simply a question of time, but that the time will come when the machines will hold the real supremacy over the world and its inhabitants is what no person of a truly philosophic mind can for a moment question.
“We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another.”
Ancient Work
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XII - The Enfant Terrible of Literature
Contexto: If a person would understand either the Odyssey or any other ancient work, he must never look at the dead without seeing the living in them, nor at the living without thinking of the dead. We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another.
Sparks
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Contexto: Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.
Ch. 67 http://books.google.com/books?id=wZAEAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA338
The Way of All Flesh (1903)
Contexto: As the days went slowly by he came to see that Christianity and the denial of Christianity after all met as much as any other extremes do; it was a fight about names — not about things; practically the Church of Rome, the Church of England, and the freethinker have the same ideal standard and meet in the gentleman; for he is the most perfect saint who is the most perfect gentleman. Then he saw also that it matters little what profession, whether of religion or irreligion, a man may make, provided only he follows it out with charitable inconsistency, and without insisting on it to the bitter end. It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.
“Not being written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be done.”
The Law
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
Contexto: The written law is binding, but the unwritten law is much more so. You may break the written law at a pinch and on the sly if you can, but the unwritten law — which often comprises the written — must not be broken. Not being written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be done.
Detail
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting
Contexto: One reason why it is as well not to give very much detail is that, no matter how much is given, the eye will always want more; it will know very well that it is not being paid in full. On the other hand, no matter how little one gives, the eye will generally compromise by wanting only a little more. In either case the eye will want more, so one may as well stop sooner or later. Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon.
Life, xvi
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part I - Lord, What is Man?
Fonte: The Way of All Flesh
Dogs
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
“All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”
Fonte: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 19
“It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.”
An Apology for the Devil
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Fonte: The Note Books of Samuel Butler
“Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime.”
Fonte: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 24
Fonte: The Way of All Flesh (1903), Ch. 14
Contexto: Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.
“To live is like to love — all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it.”
Life and Love
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy