Quote#Wisdom
Animals and plants cannot understand our business, so we have denied…
Quote bySamuel Butler · 1835–1902
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Part VI: Mind and Matter, Organic and Inorganic.
English (original)
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.
— Samuel Butler
More from Samuel Butler
A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg.
We can see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of blind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.
Stowed away in a Montreal lumber room The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall; Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught, Beauty crieth in an attic and no man regardeth: O God! O Montreal!
The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar — He has neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.