Edward Bulwer-Lytton Quotes

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.

The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells.

Poverty makes some humble, but more malignant.

Repent!—that is the idlest word in our language.

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.

He is certainly a man who bathes and "lives cleanly," (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed).

It is not Wisdom, but Ignorance, which teaches men presumption; Genius may be sometimes arrogant, but nothing is so diffident as Knowledge.

The easiest person to deceive is one’s own self.

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

There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy.

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.

The Wind and the Beam loved the Rose, And the Rose loved one:
For who recks the Wind where it blows? Or loves not the Sun?None knew whence the humble Wind stole, Poor sport of the skies:
None dreamt that the Wind had a soul In its mournful sighs.O happy Beam, how canst thou prove That bright love of thine?
In thy light is the proof of thy love, Thou hast but to shine.How its love can the Wind reveal? Unwelcome its sigh:
Mute, mute to the Rose let it steal— Its proof is—to die!