Edward Bulwer-Lytton Quotes

We cannot think or act, but the soul of some man, who has lived before, points the way. The dead never die.

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

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

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.

He never errs who sacrifices self.

Love gains the shrine when Pity opes the door.

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!

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

Why should the soul ever repose? God, its Principle, reposes never. While we speak, new worlds are sparkling forth—suns are throwing off their nebulae—nebulae are hardening into worlds. The Almighty proves His existence by creating.

The most useless creature that ever yawned at a club, or counted the vermin on his rags under the suns of Calabria, has no excuse for want of intellect. What men want is not talent, it is purpose,—in other words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labour.

Light literature,—that grace and flower of human culture, that best philosophy of all, humanizing us with gentle art, making us wise through the humours, elevated through the passions, tender in the affections of our kind.

"It is destiny!"—phrase of the weak human heart! "It is destiny!"—dark apology for every error! The strong and virtuous admit no destiny! On earth, guides Conscience—in heaven, watches God. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one—to dethrone the other!

Night, to the earnest soul, opens the Bible of the Universe, and on the leaves of Heaven is written,—"God is everywhere!"

Though Hope be a small child, she can carry a great anchor!

Happy the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!