Edward Bulwer-Lytton Quotes

It is an inevitable law that a man, in spite of himself, should live for something higher than his own happiness. He cannot live in himself or for himself, however egotistical he may try to be. Every desire he has links him with others.

Strike from mankind the principle of Faith, and men would have no more history than a flock of sheep.

It is not study alone that produces a writer; it is Intensity.

Alone!—that worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
Of hope laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!

Childhood and genius have the same master-organ in common—inquisitiveness. Let childhood have its way, and as it began where genius begins, it may find what genius finds.

There are times when the mirth of others only saddens us, especially the mirth of children with high spirits, that jar on our own quiet mood.

Master books, but do not let them master you. Read to live, not live to read.

We commenced research where modern conjecture closes its faithless wings. And with us, those were the common elements of science which the sages of to-day disdain as wild chimeras, or despair of as unfathomable mysteries.

The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash,— the Rupert of debate!

Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment there rushes between The one and the other, a sea,—
Ah, never can fall from the days that have been A gleam on the years that shall be.

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.

You speak
As one who fed on poetry.

He never errs who sacrifices self.

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 society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.