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It is noticeable how intuitively in age we go back with strange fondness to all that is fresh in the earliest dawn of youth. If we never cared for little children before, we delight to see them roll in the grass over which we hobble on crutches. The grandsire turns wearily from his middle-aged, careworn son, to listen with infant laugh to the prattle of an infant grandchild. It is the old who plant young trees; it is the old who are most saddened by the autumn; and feel most delight in the returning spring.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
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.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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One vice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Fate whirls on the bark, and the rough gale sweeps from the rising tide the lazy calm of thought.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
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.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed, -it steals away the freshness of life, -it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments, -it shuts our souls to our own youth, -and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Art employs method for the symmetrical formation of beauty, as science employs it for the logical exposition of truth; but the mechanical process is, in the last, ever kept visibly distinct, while in the first it escapes from sight amid the shows of color and the curves of grace.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
A pipe is the fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinks like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Each man forms his duty according to his predominant characteristic; the stern require an avenging judge; the gentle, a forgiving father. Just so the pygmies declared that Jove himself was a pygmy.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Despair makes victims sometimes victors.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
A sense of contentment makes us kindly and benevolent to others; we are not chafed and galled by cares which are tyrannical because original. We are fulfilling our proper destiny, and those around us feel the sunshine of our own hearts.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who early in life, clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers. Even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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Patience is a good palfrey, and will carry us a long day.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
A prudent consideration for Number One.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Hobbies should be wives, not mistresses. It will not do to have more than one at a time. One hobby leads you out of extravagance; a team of hobbies you cannot drive till you are rich enough to find corn for them all. Few men are rich enough for that.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Fate laughs at probabilities.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Tears are akin to prayer - Pharisees parade prayers, imposters parade tears.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Nature never gives to a living thing capacities not particularly meant for its benefit and use. If Nature gives to us capacities to believe that we have a Creator whom we never saw, of whom we have no direct proof, who is kind and good and tender beyond all that we know of kindness and goodness and tenderness on earth, it is because the endowment of capacities to conceive a Being must be for our benefit and use; it would not be for our benefit and use if it were a lie.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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There is no policy like politeness; and a good manner is the best thing in the world either to get a good name, or to supply the want of it.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
It is a wonderful advantage to a man, in every pursuite or avocation, to secure an adviser in a sensible woman. In woman there is at once a subtle delicacy of tact, and a plain soundness of judgement, which are rarely combined to an equal degree in man. A woman, if she be really your friend, will have a sensitive regard for your character, honor, repute. She will seldom counsel you to do a shabby thing: for a woman friend always desires to be proud of you.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
We may observe in humorous authors that the faults they chiefly ridicule have often a likeness in themselves. Cervantes had much of the knight-errant in him; Sir George Etherege was unconsciously the Fopling Flutter of his own satire; Goldsmith was the same hero to chambermaids, and coward to ladies that he has immortalized in his charming comedy; and the antiquarian frivolities of Jonathan Oldbuck had their resemblance in Jonathan Oldbuck's creator.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Though no participator in the joy of more vehement sport, I have a pleasure that I cannot reconcile to my abstract notions of the tenderness due to dumb creatures in the tranquil cruelty of angling. I can only palliate the wanton destructiveness of my amusement by trying to assure myself that my pleasure does not spring from the success of the treachery I practise toward a poor little fish, but rather from that innocent revelry in the luxuriance of summer life which only anglers enjoy to the utmost.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton