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 LyttonBooks are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonIf you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron LyttonNature never gives to a living thing capacities not particularly meant for its benefit and use. If Nature gives to us capacities to believe that we have a Creator whom we never saw, of whom we have no direct proof, who is kind and good and tender beyond all that we know of kindness and goodness and tenderness on earth, it is because the endowment of capacities to conceive a Being must be for our benefit and use; it would not be for our benefit and use if it were a lie.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton