390 Quotes by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

If there is a virtue in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness.

He who seeks repentance for the past, should woo the angel virtue for the future.

When a man is not amused, he feels an involuntary contempt for those who are.

Grief alone can teach us what is man.

The law is a gun, which if it misses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty, it hits someone else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every law creates a crime.

As the excitement of the game increases, prudence is sure to diminish.

There is no tongue that flatters like a lover’s; and yet, in the exaggeration of his feelings, flattery seems to him commonplace. Strange and prodigal exuberance, which soon exhausts itself by flowing!

A mind once cultivated will not lie fallow for half an hour.

He whom God hath gifted with a love of retirement possesses, as it were, an extra sense.