Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
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He who seeks repentance for the past, should woo the angel virtue for the future.
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Earnest men never think in vain, though their thoughts may be errors.
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Ere yet we yearn for what is out of our reach, we are still in the cradle. When wearied out with our yearnings, desire again falls asleep; we are on the death-bed.
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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.
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Business first, then pleasure.
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I believe that there is much less difference between the author and his works than is currently supposed; it is usually in the physical appearance of the writer,--his manners, his mien, his exterior,--that he falls short of the ideal a reasonable man forms of him--rarely in his mind.
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A man is already of consequence in the world when it is known that we can implicitly rely upon him. Often I have known a man to be preferred in stations of honor and profit because he had this reputation: When he said he knew a thing, he knew it, and when he said he would do a thing, he did it.
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He who esteems trifles for themselves is a trifler; he who esteems them for the conclusions to be drawn from them, or the advantage to which they can be put, is a philosopher.
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The night is past,-joy cometh with the morrow.
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Nothing ages like laziness.
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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.
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And, of all the things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best.
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It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your door be able to say: "No room for your ladyship; pass on.
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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.
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The same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains.
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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.
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Time, O my friend, is money! Time wasted can never conduce to money well managed.
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To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.
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Fortune is said to be blind, but her favorites never are. Ambition has the eye of the eagle, prudence that of the lynx; the first looks through the air, the last along the ground.
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The conscience is the most flexible material in the world. Today you cannot stretch it over a mole hill; while tomorrow it can hide a mountain.
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Success never needs an excuse.
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Better than fame is still the wish for fame, the constant training for a glorious strife.
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People praise us behind our backs, but we hear them not; few before our faces, and who is not suspicious of the truth of such praise?
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Political freedom is, or ought to be, the best guaranty for the safety and continuance of spiritual, mental, and civil freedom. It is the combination of numbers to secure the liberty to each one.