390 Quotes by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Time, O my friend, is money! Time wasted can never conduce to money well managed.

What mankind wants is not talent; it is purpose.

A man’s ancestry is a positive property to him.

Tyranny,” said Solon, “is a fair field, but it has no outlet.” A subtle, as well as a noble saying; it implies that he who has once made himself the master of the state has no option as to the means by which he must continue his power. Possessed of that fearful authority, his first object is to rule, and it becomes a secondary object to rule well.

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself.

Of all the weaknesses little men rail against, there is none that they are more apt to ridicule than the tendency to believe. And of all the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, the tendency of incredulity is the surest. Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.

Art is the effort of man to express the ideas which nature suggests to him of a power above nature, whether that power be within the recesses of his own being, or in the Great First Cause of which nature, like himself, is but the effect.

Keep unscathed the good name; keep out of peril the honor without which even your battered old soldier who is hobbling into his grave on half-pay and a wooden leg would not change with Achilles.

There is no such thing as luck. It’s a fancy name for being always at our duty, and so sure to be ready when good time comes.