Edward Bulwer-Lytton
82 quotes
Biography
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, GCMG, PC was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866.
"To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says:"Leave no stone unturned."
"... if the breast be uneducated, the gift may curse the giver; and he who passes at once from the slave to the freeman may pass as rapidly from the freeman to the ruffian."
"There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy."
"A good heart is better than all the heads in the world."
"The easiest person to deceive is one’s own self."
"It is not Wisdom, but Ignorance, which teaches men presumption; Genius may be sometimes arrogant, but nothing is so diffident as Knowledge."
"He is certainly a man who bathes and "lives cleanly," (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed)."
"Repent!—that is the idlest word in our language."
"Poverty makes some humble, but more malignant."
"The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells."
"Love is a very contradiction of all the elements of our ordinary nature: it makes the proud man meek,—the cheerful, sad,—the high-spirited, tame; our strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy, fall before it. Believe me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in a man from any knowledge of his past character."
"He who has loved often has loved never."
"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus—it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it."
"There is no tongue that flatters like a lover's; and yet, in the exaggeration of his feelings, flattery seems to him commonplace."
"The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone."
"Books are waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought."
"There is no anguish like an error of which we feel ashamed."
"Beauty, thou art twice blessed; thou blessest the gazer and the possessor; often at once the effect and the cause of goodness! A sweet disposition—a lovely soul—an affectionate nature—will speak in the eyes—the lips—the brows—and become the cause of beauty. On the other hand, they who have a gift that commands love, a key that opens all hearts, are ordinarily inclined to look with happy eyes upon the world—to be cheerful and serene—to hope and to confide. There is more wisdom than the vulgar dream of in our admiration of a fair face."
"There is an old age which has more youth of heart than youth itself!"
"When the People have no other tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one."
"Castles in the air cost a vast deal to keep up."
"Rank is a great beautifier."
"Love hath no need of words."
"Beneath the rule of men entirely great, The pen is mightier than the sword."
"Ambition has no risk."