EDWARD BULWER LYTTON QUOTES

English author & politician (1803-1873)

Edward Bulwer-Lytton quote

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.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Paul Clifford


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

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Eugene Aram

Tags: language


Prudence, patience, labor, valor; these are the stars that rule the career of mortals.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings


Let youth cherish sleep, the happiest of earthly boons, while yet it is at their command; for there cometh the day to all, when neither the voice of the lute nor the bird shall bring back the sweet slumbers that fell on their young eyes as unbidden as the dews.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

attributed, The Book of Humour, Wit & Wisdom: A Manual of Table-talk

Tags: sleep


The moonlight shone with exceeding lustre through the tall casements and lit into a ghastly semblance of life the marble images of saint and martyr, that threw their long shadows over the consecrated floor.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Calderon the Courtier


Business first, then pleasure.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: pleasure


He who has loved often ... has loved never.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

The Last Days of Pompeii

Tags: love


It may, indeed, be said that sympathy exists in all minds, as Faraday has discovered that magnetism exists in all metals; but a certain temperature is required to develop the hidden property, whether in the metal or the mind.

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Miscellaneous Prose Works

Tags: sympathy


In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail".

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: failure


Chance happens to all ... but to turn chance to account is the gift of few.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Caxtoniana

Tags: chance


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

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Devereux

Tags: vanity


While we speak, new worlds are sparkling forth--suns are throwing off their nebulae--nebulae are hardening into worlds.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Lucretia; or, The children of Night


Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Caxtoniana: A Series of Essays on Life, Literature, and Manners

Tags: liberty


The pen is mightier than the sword.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Richelieu

Tags: writing


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

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

The Disowned

Tags: deception


Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions

Tags: ideas


Night, to the earnest soul, opens the Bible of the Universe, and on the leaves of Heaven is written--"God is everywhere!"

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

The Last of the Barons

Tags: night


Say what we will, you may be sure that ambition is an error; its wear and tear of heart are never recompensed, --it steals away the freshness of life, --it deadens its vivid and social enjoyments, --it shuts our souls to our own youth, --and we are old ere we remember that we have made a fever and a labor of our raciest years.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

The Student

Tags: ambition


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.

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

Last of the Barons

Tags: fame


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

EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

The Last of the Barons

Tags: thinking