Edward Bulwer-Lytton

What men want is not talent, it is purpose; in other words, not the power to achieve, but will to labor. I believe that labor judiciously and continuously applied becomes genius.

Whatever you lend let it be your money, and not your name. Money you may get again, and, if not, you may contrive to do without it; name once lost you cannot get again, and, if you cannot contrive to do without it, you had better never have been born.

The commerce of intellect loves distant shores. The small retail dealer trades only with his neighbor; when the great merchant trades he links the four quarters of the globe.

When people have no other tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one.

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.

What a mistake to suppose that the passions are strongest in youth! The passions are not stronger, but the control over them is weaker! They are more easily excited, they are more violent and apparent; but they have less energy, less durability, less intense and concentrated power than in the mature life.

The same refinement which brings us new pleasures, exposes us to new pains.

Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle.

Talent does what it can, and genius does what it must.

A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.

The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man’s observation, not overturning it.

It is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty that Vice can obtain a lodging.

Nothing is so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth!

How many of us have been incited to reason, have first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life by some dazzling aphorism.

What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail? The easiest person to deceive is one's own self.

In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest.

Beneath the rule of men entirely great

Genius does what it must, and talent does what it can.

It was a dark and stormy night. 1

Rank is a great beautifier.

Beneath the rule of men entirely great, The pen is mightier than the sword.