Frases de Samuel Butler (poeta)

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«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A small poet: ... He makes nothing of writing plays, because he has not wit enough to understand the difficulty... Where he thinks he may do it safely, he will confidently own other men's writing... For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did, for contraries are best set off with contraries...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A news-monger: Is a retailer of rumour that takes up upon trust and sells as cheap as he buys. He deals in a perishable commodity that will not keep; for if it be not fresh it lies upon his hands and will yield nothing. True or false is all one to him; for novelty being the grace of both, a truth grows stale as soon as a lie; and as a slight suit will last as well as a better while the fashion holds, a lie serves as well as truth till new ones come up. He is little concerned whether it be good or bad, for that does not make it more or less news; and, if there be any difference, he loves the bad best, because it is said to come soonest; for he would willingly bear his share in any public calamity to have the pleasure of hearing and telling it...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A play writer: ... Nothing encourages him more in his undertaking than his ignorance, for he has not wit enough to understand so much as the difficulty of what he attempts; therefore he runs on boldly like a foolhardy wit, and Fortune, that favours fools and the bold, sometimes takes notice of him for his double capacity, and receives him into her good graces. He has one motive more, and that is the concurrent ignorant judgment of the present age, in which his sottish fopperies pass with applause, like Oliver Cromwell's oratory among fanatics of his own canting inclination. He finds it easier to write in rhyme than prose, for the world being over-charged with romances, he finds his plots, passions, and repartees ready made to his hand, and if he can but turn them into rhyme the thievery is disguised, and they pass for his own wit and invention...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A libeller: ... All his works treat but of two things, his own malice and another man's faults, both which he describes in very proper and pertinent language. He is not much concerned whether what he writes be true or false; that's nothing to his purpose, which aims only at filthy and bitter, and therefore his language is, like pictures of the devil, the fouler the better. He robs a man of his good name, not for any good it will do him (for he dares not own it), but merely, as a jackdaw steals money, for his pleasure... He deals with a man as the Spanish Inquisition does with heretics, clothes him in a coat painted with hellish shapes of fiends, and so shows him to the rabble to render him the more odious...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A modern critic: ... He is a committee-man in the commonwealth of letters, and as great a tyrant, so is not bound to proceed but by his own rules, which he will not endure to be disputed. He has been an apocryphal scribbler himself; but his writings wanting authority, he grew discontent and turned apostate, and thence becomes so severe to those of his own profession. He never commends anything but in opposition to something else that he would undervalue, and commonly sides with the weakest, which is generous anywhere but in judging. He is worse than an index expurgatorius; for he blots out all, and when he cannot find a fault, makes one...».
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A hunter: Is an auxiliary hound that assists one nation of beasts to subdue and overrun another... He takes very great pains in his way, but calls it game and sport because it is to no purpose; and he is willing to make as much of it as he can, and not be thought to bestow so much labour and pains about nothing. Let the hare take which way she will, she seldom fails to lead him at long-running to the alehouse, where he meets with an after-game of delight in making up a narrative...».
Fuente: [Morley] (1891).
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

«Caracteres» (en Remains 1759-obra póstuma)
Original: «A lawyer: Is a retailer of justice that uses false lights, false weights, and false measures. He measures right and wrong by his retaining fee, and, like a French duellist, engages on that side that first bespeaks him, though it be against his own brother; not because it is right, but merely upon a punctilio of profit, which is better than honour to him, because riches will buy nobility, and nobility nothing, as having no intrinsic value... He believes it no fault in himself to err in judgment, because that part of the law belongs to the judge and not to him...».
Fuente: [Morley] (1891).
Fuente: Remains, vol. 2 (1759)

Canto II, line 175
Fuente: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

Canto I, line 852
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto I, line 221
Fuente: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

Canto II, line 79
Fuente: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

Canto I, line 465
Fuente: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

Canto III, line 609
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto I, line 159
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto III, line 877
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

"Miscellaneous Thoughts" in The Poems of Samuel Butler, Volume 2, Press of C. Whittingham, 1822, p. 269
"Fragments", reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto I, line 273
Fuente: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

Canto I, line 463
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto III, line 277
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto I, line 65
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto III, line 309
Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Canto III, line 547. Sometimes misreported as "is convinced" instead of "complies"; reported in Paul F. Boller, Jr., and John George, They Never Said It: A Book of Fake Quotes, Misquotes, & Misleading Attributions (1989), p. 11
Fuente: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

Fuente: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)
Contexto: Shall we that in the Cov'nant swore,
Each man of us to run before
Another, still in Reformation,
Give dogs and bears a dispensation?
How will Dissenting Brethren relish it?
What will malignants say? videlicet,
That each man Swore to do his best,
To damn and perjure all the rest!
And bid the Devil take the hin'most,
Which at this race is like to win most.

Canto I, line 687
Fuente: Hudibras, Part III (1678)

From Miscellaneous Thoughts, lines 283-290 ; as contained in The Poetical Works of Samuel Butler: A Revised Edition with Memoir and Notes, Volume 2, Samuel Butler, G. Bell & Sons (1893), pp. 275-276