Frases de Samuel Butler
Samuel Butler
Fecha de nacimiento: 4. Diciembre 1835
Fecha de muerte: 18. Junio 1902
Samuel Butler fue un escritor, compositor y filólogo inglés, principalmente conocido por su sátira utópica Erewhon y su novela póstuma The Way of All Flesh.
Fue un autor iconoclasta victoriano que también escribió análisis sobre la ortodoxia cristiana y realizó estudios sobre el pensamiento evolucionista, así como sobre el arte italiano y la historia y crítica literaria. Asimismo, realizó traducciones en prosa de la Ilíada y la Odisea, que siguen siendo utilizadas hoy en día. Butler se describió a sí mismo como un "escritor filosófico".[1]
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novelista, profesorFrases Samuel Butler
„To think of a thing they must be got rid of: they are the clothes that thoughts wear—only the clothes. I say this over and over again, for there is nothing of more importance.“
— Samuel Butler
Context: "Words, words, words," he writes, "are the stumbling-blocks in the way of truth. Until you think of things as they are, and not of the words that misrepresent them, you cannot think rightly. Words produce the appearance of hard and fast lines where there are none. Words divide; thus we call this a man, that an ape, that a monkey, while they are all only differentiations of the same thing. To think of a thing they must be got rid of: they are the clothes that thoughts wear—only the clothes. I say this over and over again, for there is nothing of more importance. Other men's words will stop you at the beginning of an investigation. A man may play with words all his life, arranging them and rearranging them like dominoes. If I could think to you without words you would understand me better."
Life and Habit http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lfhb10h.htm, ch. 5 (1877)
„Genius…has been defined as a supreme capacity for taking trouble…It might be more fitly described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds and keeping them therein so long as the genius remains.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XI - Cash and Credit, Genius, i
„Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter, Context: Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own. What we call inorganic matter cannot understand the animals’ and plants’ business, we have therefore denied that it can understand anything whatever.
Organic and Inorganic
„Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness for this but of their unfitness for anything else.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books, Context: Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness for this but of their unfitness for anything else. Books should be tried by a judge and jury as though they were crimes, and counsel should be heard on both sides.
Criticism
„We can no longer separate things as we once could: everything tends towards unity; one thing, one action, in one place, at one time.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter, Context: We can no longer separate things as we once could: everything tends towards unity; one thing, one action, in one place, at one time. On the other hand, we can no longer unify things as we once could; we are driven to ultimate atoms, each one of which is an individuality. So that we have an infinite multitude of things doing an infinite multitude of actions in infinite time and space; and yet they are not many things, but one thing.
Unity and Multitude
„Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting, Context: 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.
Detail
„An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy, Context: An idea must not be condemned for being a little shy and incoherent; all new ideas are shy when introduced first among our old ones. We should have patience and see whether the incoherency is likely to wear off or to wear on, in which latter case the sooner we get rid of them the better.
Incoherency of New Ideas
„Ideas and opinions, like living organisms, have a normal rate of growth which cannot be either checked or forced beyond a certain point.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri, Context: Ideas and opinions, like living organisms, have a normal rate of growth which cannot be either checked or forced beyond a certain point. They can be held in check more safely than they can be hurried. They can also be killed; and one of the surest ways to kill them is to try to hurry them.
The Art of Propagating Opinion
„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
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890), Context: 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.
„We are too fond of seeing the ancients as one thing and the moderns as another.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XII - The Enfant Terrible of Literature, Context: 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.
Ancient Work
„It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies.“
— Samuel Butler
The Way of All Flesh (1903), Context: 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.
Ch. 67 http://books.google.com/books?id=wZAEAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA338
„Not being written, it is not always easy to know what it is, but this has got to be done.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books, Context: 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.
The Law
„If I were to start as a God or a prophet I think I should take the line: "Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a God.“
— Samuel Butler
Context: It is the manner of gods and prophets to begin: "Thou shalt have none other God or Prophet but me." If I were to start as a God or a prophet I think I should take the line: "Thou shalt not believe in me. Thou shalt not have me for a God. Thou shalt worship any d_____d thing thou likest except me." This should be my first and great commandment, and my second should be like unto it.
Samuel Butler's Notebooks (1912) self censored "d_____d" in original publication
„I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.“
— Samuel Butler
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part II - Elementary Morality, Context: Is there any religion whose followers can be pointed to as distinctly more amiable and trustworthy than those of any other? If so, this should be enough. I find the nicest and best people generally profess no religion at all, but are ready to like the best men of all religions.
Religion
