Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful benevolence in that rarest of gifts,--fine breeding.
It is often the easiest move that completes the game. Fortune is like the lady whom a lover carried off from all his rivals by putting an additional lace upon his liveries.
Days are like years in the love of the young, when no bar, no obstacle, is between their hearts,--when the sun shines, and the course runs smooth--when their love is prosperous and confessed.
There is no man so great as not to have some littleness more predominant than all his greatness. Our virtues are the dupes, and often only the plaything of our follies.
The grave is, I suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so heartily abhors.
Fame confers a rank above that of gentleman and of kings. As soon as she issues her patent of nobility, it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a Bourbon or of a tallow-chandler.
There are times when the mirth of others only saddens us, especially the mirth of children with high spirits, that jar on our own quiet mood.
Love thou, and if thy love be deep as mine, Thou wilt not laugh at poets.
Invention is nothing more than a fine deviation from, or enlargement on a fine model . . .
The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the universe; the poet can call an universe from the atom.
When you borrow on your character, it is your character that you leave in pawn.
If aught be worse than failure from overstress of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success.
The bold sympathize with the bold; and in great hearts, there is always a certain friendship for a gallant foe.
Money is a terrible blab; she will betray the secrets of her owner, whatever he do to gag her. His virtues will creep out in her whisper; his vices she will cry aloud at the top of her tongue.
Fate whirls on the bark, and the rough gale sweeps from the rising tide the lazy calm of thought.
The more the merely human part of the poet remains a mystery, the more willing is the reverence given to his divine mission.
Life, that ever needs forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive.
Man hazards the condition and loses the virtues of a freeman, in proportion as he accustoms his thoughts to view without anguish or shame, his lapse into the bondage of debtor.
There is one form of hope which is never unwise, and which certainly does not diminish with the increase of knowledge. In that form it changes its name, and we call it patience.
Alone!-that worn-out word, So idly spoken, and so coldly heard; Yet all that poets sing and grief hath known Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!
Curse away! And let me tell thee, Beausant, a wise proverb The Arabs have,-"Curses are like young chickens, And still come home to roost."
What men want is not talent, it is purpose; in other words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labor.
No reproach is like that we clothe in a smile, and present with a bow.
Death is the only monastery; the tomb is the only cell, and the grave that adjoins the convent is the bitterest mock of its futility.
The veil which covers the face of futurity is woven by the hand of mercy.
More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent, their kindness is swelled by the thaw.
When the world frowns, we can face it; but let it smile, and we are undone.
Whatever you lend let it be your money, and not your name. Money you may get again, and, if not, you may contrive to do without it; name once lost you cannot get again.
Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is wholly imperfect.
Why should the soul ever repose? God, its Principle, reposes never.
Keep we to the broad truths before us; duty here; knowledge comes alone in the Hereafter.
Faith builds in the dungeon and lazarhouse its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro,--prayer.