Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
-
Art does not imitate nature, but founds itself on the study of nature, takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, viz: The mind and soul of man.
-
To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.
-
It is the glorious doom of literature that the evil perishes and the good remains.
-
Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege to sooth. Woman consoles us, it is true, while we are young and handsome; when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that. Jupiter! Hang out thy balance, and weigh them both; and if thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter, try the weed.
-
Earnest men never think in vain, though their thoughts may be errors.
-
Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star did ye drink in your liquid melancholy?
-
Expression is the mystery of beauty.
-
It is a very high mind to which gratitude is not a painful sensation. If you wish to please, you will find it wiser to receive, solicit even, favors, than accord them; for the vanity of the obligor is always flattered, that of the obligee rarely.
-
When you talk to the half-wise, twaddle; when you talk to the ignorant, brag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble and ask their opinion.
-
The affections are immortal! They are the sympathies which unite the ceaseless generations.
-
The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells.
-
In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin.
-
Of all the virtues necessary to the completion of the perfect man, there is none to be more delicately implied and less ostentatiously vaunted than that of exquisite feeling or universal benevolence.
-
The secret of fashion is to surprise and never to disappoint.
-
There's no weapon that slays its victim so surely if well aimed as praise.
-
Remedy your deficiencies,and your merits will take care of themselves.
-
Never, be argued out of your soul, never be argued out of your honor, and never be argued into believing that soul and honor do not run a terrible risk if you limp into life with the load of a debt on your shoulders.
-
We cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for.
-
The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy.
-
But never yet the dog our country fed, Betrayed the kindness or forgot the bread.
-
Kindness like light speaks in the air it gilds.
-
Could we know by what strange circumstances a man's genius became prepared for practical success, we should discover that the most serviceable items in his education were never entered in the bills which his father paid for.
-
Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.
-
That man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only with gentlemen. To be a man of the world we must view that world in every grade and in every perspective.