Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
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Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.
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In these days half our diseases come from neglect of the body in overwork of the brain.
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The classic literature is always modern.
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Thought is valuable in proportion as it is generative.
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As it has been finely expressed, "Principle is a passion for truth." And as an earlier and homelier writer hath it, "The truths we believe in are the pillars of our world.
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In how large a proportion of creatures is existence composed of one ruling passion, the most agonizing of all sensations--fear.
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The secret of fashion is to surprise and never to disappoint.
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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.
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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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Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny. When two men shake hands and part, mark which of the two takes the sunny side; he will be the younger man of the two.
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Remedy your deficiencies,and your merits will take care of themselves.
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Keep we to the broad truths before us; duty here; knowledge comes alone in the Hereafter.
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The food of hope is meditative action.
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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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The heart of a man's like that delicate weed, / Which requires to be trampled on, boldly indeed / Ere it gives forth the fragrance you wish to extract.
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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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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.
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A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry to a woman.
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It is the glorious doom of literature that the evil perishes and the good remains.
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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.
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There's no weapon that slays its victim so surely if well aimed as praise.
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A friend who stands with you in pressure is more valuable than a hundred ones who stand with you in pleasure.
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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.
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Irony is to the high-bred what billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an ass, he does not say it point-blank, he implies it in the politest terms he can invent.