Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
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Emulation, even in brutes, is sensitively "nervous." See the tremor of the thoroughbred racer before he starts. The dray-horse does not tremble, but he does not emulate. It is not his work to run a race. Says Marcus Antoninus, "It is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upward or downward." Yet the emulation of a man of genius is seldom with his contemporaries, that is, inwardly in his mind, although outwardly in his act it would seem so. The competitors with whom his secret ambition seems to vie are the dead.
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A mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.
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Vanity calculates but poorly on the vanity of others; what a virtue we should distil from frailty, what a world of pain we should save our brethren, if we would suffer our own weakness to be the measure of theirs.
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Fate whirls on the bark, and the rough gale sweeps from the rising tide the lazy calm of thought.
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The Italians have voices like peacocks - German gives me a cold in the head - and Russian is nothing but sneezing.
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The mate for beauty should be a man and not a money chest.
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Our glories float between the earth and heaven Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun, And are the playthings of the casual wind.
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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.
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Toil to some is happiness, and rest to others. This man can only breathe in crowds, and that man only in solitudes.
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Ambition has no rest.
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Certain I am that every author who has written a book with earnest forethought and fondly cherished designs will bear testimony to the fact that much which he meant to convey has never been guessed at in any review of his work; and many a delicate beauty of thought, on which he principally valued himself, remains, like the statue of Isis, an image of truth from which no hand lifts the veil.
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Dandies, when first-rate, are generally very agreeable men.
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When one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be.
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Poets alone are sure of immortality; they are the truest diviners of nature.
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To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: Leave no stone unturned.
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The most delicate beauty in the mind of women is, and ever must be, an independence of artificial stimulants for content. It is not so with men. The links that bind men to capitals belong to the golden chain of civilization,--the chain which fastens all our destinies to the throne of Jove. And hence the larger proportion of men in whom genius is pre-eminent have preferred to live in cities, though some of them have bequeathed to us the loveliest pictures of the rural scenes in which they declined to dwell.
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The worst part of an eminent man's conversation is, nine times out of ten, to be found in that part by which he means to be clever.
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We must remember how apt man is to extremes--rushing from credulity and weakness to suspicion and distrust.
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Earnestness is the best gift of mental power, and deficiency of heart is the cause of many men never becoming great.
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A man's heart must be very frivolous if the possession of fame rewards the labor to attain it. For the worst of reputation is that it is not palpable or present - we do not feel or see or taste it.
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Whenever man commits a crime heaven finds a witness.
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Childhood and genius have the same master organ in common - inquisitiveness.
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Bu is a word that cools many a warm impulse, stifles many a kindly thought, puts a dead stop to many a brotherly deed. No one would ever love his neighbor as himself if he listened to all the Buts that could be said.
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There is a great deal we never think of calling religion that is still fruit unto God, and garnered by Him in the harvest. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, patience, goodness. I affirm that if these fruits are found in any form, whether you show your patience as a woman nursing a fretful child, or as a man attending to the vexing detail of a business, or as a physician following the dark mazes of sickness, or as a mechanic fitting the joints and valves of a locomotive; being honest true besides, you bring forth truth unto God.