Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Samuel ButlerRead
There is no true gracefulness which is not epitomized goodness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True gracefulness stems from genuine goodness and character.
This quote highlights the connection between gracefulness and goodness, suggesting that to be truly graceful is to embody virtuous qualities. It implies that external elegance and charm must be rooted in deeper moral integrity, as superficial grace without goodness lacks authenticity.
Themes
GracefulnessGoodnessCharacterVirtueIntegrity
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote during a speech on personal values.
More from Samuel Butler
All quotes βTo know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
Samuel ButlerRead
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
Samuel ButlerRead
An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.
Samuel ButlerRead
Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Samuel ButlerRead
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
Samuel ButlerRead
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I see the origin of the irresistible attraction of metaphor and analogy, the explanation of our strange and permanent need to find similarities in things. I can scarcely refrain from suspecting some ancient, diffused magnetism; a call from the center of things; a dim, almost lost memory, or perhaps a presentiment, pointless in so puny a being, of a universal syntax.
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