Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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

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

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

“Rank is a great beautifier.”

“The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.”

“Happy is 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.”

“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.”

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

“Alone! — that worn-out word, Of hopes laid waste, knells in that word ALONE!”

“A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow, time enough to consider it when it becomes to-day.”

“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.”

“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.”

“You speakAs one who fed on poetry.”

“Beneath the rule of men entirely great,The pen is mightier than the sword.”

“Truth makes on the ocean of nature no one track of light — every eye looking on finds its own”

“In science, read, by preference the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.”

“The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who, early in life, clearly discerns his object, and towards that object habitually directs his powers. Even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose. Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius.”

“My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the earth.”