Emulation, even in brutes, is sensitively "nervous." See the tremor of the thoroughbred racer before he starts. The dray-horse does not tremble, but he does not emulate. It is not his work to run a race. Says Marcus Antoninus, "It is all one to a stone whether it be thrown upward or downward." Yet the emulation of a man of genius is seldom with his contemporaries, that is, inwardly in his mind, although outwardly in his act it would seem so. The competitors with whom his secret ambition seems to vie are the dead.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonThe grave is, I suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so heartily abhors.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonIt is the glorious doom of literature that the evil perishes and the good remains.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonA pipe is the fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinks like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonThat man will never be a perfect gentleman who lives only with gentlemen. To be a man of the world we must view that world in every grade and in every perspective.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton