Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes
-
The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells.
-
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.
-
Happy indeed the poet of whom, like Orpheus, nothing is known but an immortal name! Happy next, perhaps, the poet of whom, like Homer, nothing is known but the immortal works. The more the merely human part of the poet remains a mystery, the more willing is the reverence given to his divine mission.
-
Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.
-
Ere yet we yearn for what is out of our reach, we are still in the cradle. When wearied out with our yearnings, desire again falls asleep; we are on the death-bed.
-
Kindness like light speaks in the air it gilds.
-
Archaeology is not only the hand maid of history, it is also the conservator of art.
-
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.
-
Genius, the Pythian of the beautiful, leaves its large truths a riddle to the dull.
-
The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy.
-
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.
-
Tell me, sweet eyes, from what divinest star did ye drink in your liquid melancholy?
-
There is one form of hope which is never unwise, and which certainly does not diminish with the increase of knowledge. In that form it changes its name, and we call it patience.
-
Philosophy, while it soothes the reason, damps the ambition.
-
The faults of a brilliant writer are never dangerous on the long run; a thousand people read his work who would read no other; inquiry is directed to each of his doctrines; it is soon discovered what is sound and what is false; the sound become maxims, and the false beacons.
-
If you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not, don't. And the advice applies to many doubts in life besides that of letter writing.
-
The same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains.
-
There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.
-
As the excitement of the game increases, prudence is sure to diminish.
-
Nothing so good as a university education, nor worse than a university without its education.
-
What is human is immortal!
-
You know There are moments when silence, prolonged and unbroken, More expressive may be than all words ever spoken.
-
Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.
-
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.