Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
Samuel ButlerRead
Work with some men is as besetting a sin as idleness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Working with the wrong people can be just as detrimental as being idle.
This quote by Samuel Butler emphasizes the notion that the quality of collaboration is vital; engaging with individuals who do not inspire or contribute positively can hinder progress, much like laziness or idleness can. It highlights the importance of choosing the right company to avoid detrimental outcomes in work and life.
Themes
WorkIdlenessCollaborationQualityInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
In a business meeting about team dynamics, you might quote this to stress the importance of team selection.
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
Similar quotes
For the warrior, there is no "better" or "worse"; everyone has the necessary gifts for his particular path.
Paulo CoelhoRead
I must try to be alone for part of each year...and part of each day...in order to keep my core, my center...Women must be still as the axis of a wheel in the midst of her activities. She must be the pioneer of achieving this stillness, not only for her own salvation, but for the salvation of family life, of society, perhaps even of our civilization.
Anne Morrow LindberghRead
I don't know if I have a memory of not thinking I was a writer - it goes that far back. I went to law school because I didn't know how to earn a living otherwise. I tried to ignore the pull, but it wouldn't let me.
Elizabeth StroutRead
How strange to think that great pain may be impermanent. Something in us all seems to want to carve it in granite, as if only this would do full honor to its terrible significance. But even pain is blessed with impermanence... p 259
Rachel Naomi RemenRead
Healing for me is being able to sit next to the butcher and say 'Yes, Iβm sitting next to the butcher now,' instead of saying 'there is no butcher'.
Tori AmosRead
Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.
Orson Scott CardRead