Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton Quotes

Philosophers have done wisely when they have told us to cultivate our reason rather than our feelings, for reason reconciles us to the daily things of existence; our feelings teach us to yearn after the far, the difficult, the unseen.

To the thinker, the most trifling external object often suggests ideas, which, like Homer's chain, extend, link after link, from earth to heaven.

Strive, while improving your one talent, to enrich your whole capital as a man. It is in this way that you escape from the wretched narrow-mindedness which is the characteristic of every one who cultivates his specialty alone.

Genius, the Pythian of the beautiful, leaves its large truths a riddle to the dull.

Shame is like the weaver's thread; if it breaks in the net, it is wholly imperfect.

Love sacrifices all things to bless the thing it loves.

Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy, he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many.

Vanity calculates but poorly on the vanity of others; what a virtue we should distil from frailty, what a world of pain we should save our brethren, if we would suffer our own weakness to be the measure of theirs.

Expression is the mystery of beauty.

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

Debt is to man what the serpent is to the bird; its eye fascinates, its breath poisons, its coil crushes sinew and bone, its jaw is the pitiless grave.

Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.

Trees that, like the poplar, lift upward all their boughs, give no shade and no shelter, whatever their height. Trees the most lovingly shelter and shade us, when, like the willow, the higher soar their summits, the lower drop their boughs.