01c. 1839 ADThe distinguishing trait of people accustomed to good society is a calm, imperturbable quiet, which pervades all their actions and habits, from the greatest to the least. They eat in quiet, move in quiet, live in quiet, and lose their wife, or even their money in quiet; while others cannot take up either a spoon, or an affront, without making such an amazing noise about it.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
02c. 1839 ADIt is beautifully said that the veil of futurity is woven by the hand of mercy.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
03c. 1839 ADHe who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth himself the softest consolation next to that which cometh from heaven. “What, softer than woman?” whispers the young reader. Young reader, woman teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she boasts the privilege of soothing. On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that—Jupiter! hang out thy balance and weigh them both; and, if thou give the preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee, O Jupiter, try the weed!Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
04c. 1839 ADWhen one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
05c. 1839 ADIt is the appearances that fill the scene; and we pause not to ask of what realities they are the proxies. When the actor of Athens moved all hearts as he clasped the burial urn, and burst into broken sobs, how few then knew that it held the ashes of his son!Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
06c. 1839 ADIf I were to deliver up my whole self to the arbitrament of special pleaders, to-day I might be argued into an atheist, and to-morrow into a pickpocket.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
07c. 1839 ADArt does not imitate nature, but it founds itself on the study of nature—takes from nature the selections which best accord with its own intention, and then bestows on them that which nature does not possess, namely, the mind and the soul of man.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
08c. 1839 ADStrange thing art, especially music. Out of an art a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile, at best a grown infant. Put him into his art, and how high he soars above you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a denizen, and, unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to follow, an humble, reverent visitor.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
09c. 1839 ADWhen we look back upon human records, how the eye settles upon writers as the main landmarks of the past.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
10c. 1839 ADThe German poet observes that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow!Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
11c. 1839 ADThose critics who, in modern times, have the most thoughtfully analyzed the laws of æsthetic beauty, concur in maintaining that the real truthfulness of all works of imagination—sculpture, painting, written fiction—is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent the positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
12c. 1839 ADIt is in contemplating man at a distance that we become benevolent.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
13c. 1839 ADAccording to the security you offer to her, Fortune makes her loans easy or ruinous.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
14c. 1839 ADOratory, like the Drama, abhors lengthiness; like the Drama, it must be kept doing. It avoids, as frigid, prolonged metaphysical soliloquy. Beauties themselves, if they delay or distract the effect which should be produced on the audience, become blemishes.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
15c. 1839 ADNature never gives to a living thing capacities not particularly meant for its benefit and use. If nature gives to us capacities to believe that we have a Creator whom we never saw, of whom we have no direct proof, who is kind and good and tender beyond all that we know of kindness and goodness and tenderness on earth, it is because the endowment of capacities to conceive a Being must be for our benefit and use; it would not be for our benefit and use if it were a lie.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
16c. 1839 ADThe pious vanity of man makes him adore his own qualities under the pretense of worshiping those of God.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
17c. 1839 ADA man's own conscience is his sole tribunal; and he should care no more for that phantom "opinion" than he should fear meeting a ghost if he cross the churchyard at dark.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
19c. 1839 ADYouth is in danger until it learns to look upon debts as furies.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
20c. 1839 ADThirsting for the golden fountain of the fable, from how many streams have we turned away, weary and in disgust!Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
21c. 1839 ADRemember Talleyrand's advice, "If you are in doubt whether to write a letter or not—don't!" The advice applies to many doubts in life besides that of letter writing.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
22c. 1839 ADNothing so good as a university education, nor worse than a university without its education.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
23c. 1839 ADEmotion, whether of ridicule, anger, or sorrow; whether raised at a puppet-show, a funeral, or a battle, is your grandest of levelers. The man who would be always superior should be always apathetic.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
24c. 1839 ADWhether I be the grandest genius on earth in a single thing, and that single thing earthy, or the poor peasant who, behind his plow, whistles for want of thought, I strongly suspect it will be all one when I pass to the Competitive Examination yonder! On the other side of the grave a Raffael's occupation may be gone as well as a plowman's.Edward Bulwer Lytton / quote ↗
