Oratory, like the drama, abhors lengthiness; like the drama, it must keep doing.—Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Genius, Observation
At court one becomes a sort of humarant-eater, and learns to catch one’s prey by one’s tongue.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Few natures can preserve through years the poetry of the first passionate illusion. That can alone render wedlock the seal that confirms affection, and not the mocking ceremonial that consecrates its grave.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Marriage
It is an error to suppose that courage means courage in everything. Most people are brave only in the dangers to which they accustom themselves, either in imagination or practice.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Courage
The man who has acquired the habit of study, though for only one hour every day in the year, and keeps to the one thing studied till it is mastered, will be startled to see the progress he has made at the end of a twelvemonth.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Study
The golden age never leaves the world; it exists still, and shall exist, till love, health, and poetry, are no more—but only for the young.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Youth
It is the most beautiful truth in morals that we have no such thing as a distinct or divided interest from our race.—In their welfare is ours; and by choosing the broadest paths to effect their happiness, we choose the surest and shortest to our own.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Democracy
The poet, whether in prose or verse, the creator, can only stamp his images forcibly on the page, in proportion as he has forcibly felt, ardently nursed, and long brooded over them.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Poetry
The same refinement which brings us new pleasures, exposes us to new pains.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Pain
Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Ambition
All the passions, says an old writer, “are such near neighbors, that if one of them is on fire the others should send for the buckets.” Thus love and hate being both passions, the one is never safe from the spark that sets the other ablaze.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Passion
Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Happiness
The great secrets of being courted, are, to shun others and to seem delighted with yourself.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Popularity
Take away the sword; states can be saved without it; bring the pen!
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Philosophers have done wisely when they have told us to cultivate our reason rather than our feelings, for reason reconciles us to the daily things of existence; our feelings teach us to yearn after the far, the difficult, the unseen.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Reason
Tell me not of the pain of falsehood to the slandered! There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Vanity
Dissimulation is often humble, often polished, grave, smooth, decorous; but it is rarely gay and jovial, a hearty laugher, or a merry, cordial, boon companion.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Earnest men never think in vain though their thoughts may be errors.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Thought
Two lives that once part are as ships that divide.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Divorce
There are two lives to each of us, the life of our actions, and the life of our minds and hearts.—History reveals men’s deeds and their outward characters, but not themselves.—There is a secret self that has its own life, unpenetrated and unguessed.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Life
Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Liberty
In beginning the world, if you don’t wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, and put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air on grand occasions.—It is a garment all stiff brocade outside, and all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin.—Even kings do not wear the dalmaticum except at a coronation.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Pride
Would you throughout life be up to the height of your century, always in the prime of man’s reason, without crudeness and without decline, live habitually, while young, with persons older, and when old with persons younger than yourself.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Life
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Love
There is scarcely a good critic of books born in our age, and yet every fool thinks himself justified in criticising persons.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Critics
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.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Passion
As has been finely expressed, “Principle is a passion for truth,” And as an earlier and homelier writer hath it, “The truths we believe in are the pillars of our world.”
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Truth
I was always an early riser. Happy the man who is! Every morning day comes to him with a virgin’s love, full of bloom and freshness. The youth of nature is contagious, like the gladness of a happy child.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Topics: Morning
Emotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow, whether raised at a puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levelers.—The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- William Ewart Gladstone English Liberal Statesman
- Benjamin Disraeli British Head of State
- Thomas Buxton, 1st Baronet British Religious Figure
- J. B. Priestley British Novelist, Playwright, Essayist
- William Congreve English Dramatist
- John Dryden English Poet
- John Gay English Poet, Dramatist
- Robert Browning English Poet
- Augustine Birrell English Politician, Essayist
- Colley Cibber English Playwright
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