„Wir denken wie wir denken hauptsächlich, weil andere so denken.“
Notebooks, 1912
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Zitate von Samuel Butler d.J.
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Samuel Butler d.J.
Geburtstag: 4. Dezember 1835
Todesdatum: 18. Juni 1902
Samuel Butler war ein britischer Schriftsteller, Komponist, Philologe, Maler und Gelehrter.
Zitate Samuel Butler d.J.
„Es ist viel sicherer, zu wenig als zu viel zu wissen.“
Der Weg allen Fleisches, 1903, 5
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„Freundschaft ist wie Geld, leichter gewonnen als erhalten.“
Notebooks, 1912
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„Alle Lebewesen außer dem Menschen wissen, dass der Hauptzweck des Lebens darin besteht, es zu genießen.“
Der Weg allen Fleisches. Roman, postum 1903. Übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen versehen von Helmut Findeisen. dtv Klassik, München 1991, ISBN 3-423-02240-X, 19. Kapitel.
(Original en: "All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it." - The Way of All Flesh", Wikisource, chapter 19.
„Der beste Lügner ist der, der mit den wenigsten Lügen am längsten auskommt.“
Der Weg allen Fleisches 1903, 39
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„Die Welt wird letztlich nur denen folgen, die sie verachten - und ihr dienen.“
Notebooks
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„Für sich selbst ist jeder unsterblich; er mag wissen, dass er sterben muss, aber er kann nie wissen, dass er tot ist.“
Notebooks, 1912
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„Nicht Worte sollen wir lesen, sondern den Menschen, den wir hinter den Worten fühlen.“
Notebooks
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„Ein Liebespaar ist wie Sonnenaufgang und -untergang; es gibt sie alle Tage, aber wir sehen sie selten.“
Der Weg allen Fleisches, 1903, 11
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„Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied that they can understand their own.“
Organic and Inorganic
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VI - Mind and Matter
Kontext: 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.
„Ideas and opinions, like living organisms, have a normal rate of growth which cannot be either checked or forced beyond a certain point.“
The Art of Propagating Opinion
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part X - The Position of a HomoUnius Libri
Kontext: 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.
„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.“
Darwin Among the Machines
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part III - The Germs of Erewhon and of Life and Habit
Kontext: 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.
„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.“
Life and Habit http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lfhb10h.htm, ch. 5 (1877)
Kontext: "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."
„As a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not letting a sleeping dog lie.“
Philosophy
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XX - First Principles
Kontext: As a general rule philosophy is like stirring mud or not letting a sleeping dog lie. It is an attempt to deny, circumvent or otherwise escape from the consequences of the interlacing of the roots of things with one another.
„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.“
Ramblings In Cheapside (1890)
Kontext: 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.
„Critics generally come to be critics by reason not of their fitness for this but of their unfitness for anything else.“
Criticism
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part VII - On the Making of Music, Pictures, and Books
Kontext: 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.
