390 Quotes by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate.

In all cases of heart-ache, the application of another man’s disappointment draws out the pain and allays the irritation.

A sense of contentment makes us kindly and benevolent to others; we are not chafed and galled by cares which are tyrannical because original. We are fulfilling our proper destiny, and those around us feel the sunshine of our own hearts.

A man who cannot win fame in big own age will have a very small chance of winning it from posterity. True, there are some half-dozen exceptions to this truth among millions of myriads that attest it; but what man of common sense would invest any large amount of hope in so unpromising a lottery?

Character is money; and according as the man earns or spends the money, money in turn becomes character. As money is the most evident power in the world’s uses, so the use that he makes of money is often all that the world knows about a man.

To judge human character rightly, a man may sometimes have very small experience, provided he has a very large heart.

The more the merely human part of the poet remains a mystery, the more willing is the reverence given to his divine mission.

I, artist in words, dedicate, then, to you, artist whose ideas speak in marble, this well-loved work of my matured manhood. I love it not the less because it has been little understood and superficially judged by the common herd: it was not meant for them. I love it not the more because it has found enthusiastic favorers amongst the Few. My affection for my work is rooted in the solemn and pure delight which it gave me to conceive and to perform.

A man of genius is inexhaustible only in proportion as he is always renourishing his genius.