EDWARD BULWER LYTTON QUOTES
English author & politician (1803-1873)
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
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
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
He who has loved often ... has loved never.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The Last Days of Pompeii
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
In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves
For a bright manhood, there is no such word
As "fail".
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Richelieu
There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Devereux
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
Chance happens to all ... but to turn chance to account is the gift of few.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Caxtoniana
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
The easiest person to deceive is one's own self.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
The Disowned
The pen is mightier than the sword.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Richelieu
Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON
Kenelm Chillingly: His Adventures and Opinions
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
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
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
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