Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
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He that fancies himself very enlightened, because he sees the deficiencies of others, may be very ignorant, because he has not studied his own.
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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 bold sympathize with the bold; and in great hearts, there is always a certain friendship for a gallant foe.
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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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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 laughs at probabilities.
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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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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.
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Money never can be well managed if sought solely through the greed of money for its own sake. In all meanness there is a defect of intellect as well as of heart. And even the cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.
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In life, as in whist, hope nothing from the way cards may be dealt to you. Play the cards, whatever they be, to the best of your skill.
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The mate for beauty should be a man and not a money chest.
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Julius Caesar owed two millions when he risked the experiment of being general in Gaul. If Julius Caesar had not lived to cross the Rubicon, and pay off his debts, what would his creditors have called Julius Caesar?
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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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Tears are akin to prayer - Pharisees parade prayers, imposters parade tears.
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As the films of clay are removed from our eyes, Death loses the false aspect of the spectre, and we fall at last into its arms as a wearied child upon the bosom of its mother.
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In all cases of heart-ache, the application of another man's disappointment draws out the pain and allays the irritation.
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Of all the conditions to which the heart is subject suspense is one that most gnaws and cankers into the frame. One little month of that suspense, when it involves death, we are told by an eye witness in "Wakefield on the Punishment of Death," is sufficient to plough fixed lines and furrows in a convict of five and twenty,--sufficient, to dash the brown hair with grey, and to bleach the grey to white.
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What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in maturer life.
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Our very wretchedness grows dear to us when suffering for one we love.
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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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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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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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The higher the rank the less pretence, because there is less to pretend to.
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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.