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In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal and live upon their fellow-men as a natural food.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
To how many is the death of the beloved the parent of faith!
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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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.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Bright and illustrious illusions! Who can blame, who laugh at the boy, who not admire and commend him, for that desire of a fame outlasting the Pyramids by which he insensibly learns to live in a life beyond the present, and nourish dreams of a good unattainable by the senses?
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Strive, while improving your one talent, to enrich your whole capital as a man. It is in this way that you escape from the wretched narrow-mindedness which is the characteristic of every one who cultivates his specialty alone.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of millions of vibrations have to penetrate the eye before the eye can distinguish the tints of a violet.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame - to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
It may, indeed, be said that sympathy exists in all minds, as Faraday has discovered that magnetism exists in all metals; but a certain temperature is required to develop the hidden property, whether in the metal or the mind.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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To live On means not yours--be brave in silks and laces, Gallant in steeds; splendid in banquets; all Not yours. Given, uninherited, unpaid for; This is to be a trickster; and to filch Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth, Life, daily bread;--quitting all scores with "friend, You're troublesome!" Why this, forgive me, Is what, when done with a less dainty grace, Plain folks call "Theft.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Society is a long series of uprising ridges, which from the first to the last offer no valley of repose. Whenever you take your stand, you are looked down upon by those above you, and reviled and pelted by those below you. Every creature you see is a farthing Sisyphus, pushing his little stone up some Liliputian mole-hill. This is our world.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Every great man exhibits the talent of organization or construction, whether it be in a poem, a philosophical system, a policy, or a strategy. And without method there is no organization nor construction.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
The law is a gun, which if it misses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty, it hits someone else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every law creates a crime.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble;but the religion of Christ, which is the sublime civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble man; and nothing so debases him as revenge.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
What a rare gift, by the by, is that of manners! how difficult to define, how much more difficult to impart! Better for a man to possess them than wealth, beauty, or talent; they will more than supply all.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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Grief alone can teach us what is man.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
You know There are moments when silence, prolonged and unbroken, More expressive may be than all words ever spoken.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
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.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
What men want is not talent, it is purpose; in other words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labor.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Power is so characteristically calm that calmness in itself has the aspect of power, and forbearance implies strength. The orator who is known to have at his command all the weapons of invective is most formidable when most courteous.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Kindness like light speaks in the air it gilds.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
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It is an error to suppose that courage means courage in everything.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
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.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Never get a reputation for a small perfection if you are trying for fame in a loftier area. The world can only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiae seldom have their minds occupied with great things.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Faith builds in the dungeon and lazarhouse its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro,--prayer.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton