Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes

How many of us have been attracted to reason; first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism.

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.

There is no such thing as luck. It's a fancy name for being always at our duty, and so sure to be ready when good time comes.

The conscience is the most flexible material in the world. Today you cannot stretch it over a mole hill; while tomorrow it can hide a mountain.

The real truthfulness of all works of imagination, sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite.

Genius is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.

Men are valued, not for what they are, but for what they seem to be.

A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.

A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry to a woman.

Punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes.

Love has no thought of self! Love buys not with the ruthless usurer's gold The loathsome prostitution of a hand Without a heart! Love sacrifices all things To bless the thing it loves!

In life, as in art, the beautiful moves in curves.

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh.

Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes no victories without it

We tell our triumphs to the crowds, but our own hearts are the sole confidants of our sorrows.

Sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak.

Archaeology is not only the hand maid of history, it is also the conservator of art.

As a general rule, people who flagrantly pretend to anything are the reverse of that which they pretend to. A man who sets up for a saint is sure to be a sinner; and a man who boasts that he is a sinner is sure to have some feeble, maudlin, snivelling bit of saintship about him which is enough to make him a humbug.

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.

Master books, but do not let them master you.

Love sacrifices all things to bless the thing it loves.

There is no man so friendless but that he can find a friend sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.

Fate laughs at probabilities.

The Italians have voices like peacocks - German gives me a cold in the head - and Russian is nothing but sneezing

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.

When you talk to the half-wise, twaddle; when you talk to the ignorant, brag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble and ask their opinion.

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

Power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of strength.

Out of the ashes of misanthropy benevolence rises again; we find many virtues where we had imagined all was vice, many acts of disinterested friendship where we had fancied all was calculation and fraud--and so gradually from the two extremes we pass to the proper medium; and, feeling that no human being is wholly good or wholly base, we learn that true knowledge of mankind which induces us to expect little and forgive much. The world cures alike the optimist and the misanthrope.

A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.

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.

Anger ventilated often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often hardens into revenge.

Expression is the mystery of beauty.

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.

Patience is the courage of the conqueror, the strength of man against destiny.

The world thinks eccentricity in great things is genius, but in small things, only crazy.

The classic literature is always modern.

Punctuality is a virtue, If you don't mind being lonely.

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.

The secret of fashion is to surprise and never to disappoint.

Our glories float between the earth and heaven Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun, And are the playthings of the casual wind.

Let youth cherish sleep, the happiest of earthly boons, while yet it is at its command; for there cometh the day to all when "neither the voice of the lute nor the birds" shall bring back the sweet slumbers that fell on their young eyes as unbidden as the dews.

Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.

What ever our wandering our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and in the middle of the objects more immediately within our reach.

Ambition has no rest.

When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.

The desire of excellence is the necessary attribute of those who excel. We work little for a thing unless we wish for it.

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.