Top 350 Edward Bulwer-Lytton Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Ambition has no rest.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

2. “Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

3. “Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

4. “Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

5. “Revolutions are not made with rosewater.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

6. “Business first, then pleasure.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

7. “Patience is the courage of the conqueror, the strength of man against destiny.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

8. “We are born for a higher destiny than that of earth; there is a realm where the rainbow never fades, where the stars will be spread before us like islands that slumber on the ocean, and where the beings that pass before us like shadows will stay in our presence forever.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

9. “A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

10. “Power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of strength.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

11. “Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

12. “To be happy, you must learn to forget yourself.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

13. “Archaeology is not only the hand maid of history, it is also the conservator of art.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

14. “Reading without purpose is sauntering not exercise.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

15. “To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says: Leave no stone unturned.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

16. “The circle of life is cut up into segments. All lines are equal if they are drawn from the centre and touch the circumference.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

18. “The classic literature is always modern.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

20. “A fresh mind keeps the body fresh.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

21. “Genius is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

22. “A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

23. “Man must be disappointed with the lesser things of life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

24. “A friend who stands with you in pressure is more valuable than a hundred ones who stand with you in pleasure.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

25. “Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

26. “Good humor is the sunshine of the mind.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

27. “A pipe is the fountain of contemplation, the source of pleasure, the companion of the wise; and the man who smokes, thinks like a philosopher and acts like a Samaritan.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

28. “A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry to a woman.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

29. “What’s money without happiness?”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

30. “A man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance. Man’s natural tendency is to egotism. Man, in his infancy of knowledge, thinks that all creation was formed for him.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

31. “Whenever man commits a crime heaven finds a witness.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

32. “Talk not of genius baffled. Genius is master of man. Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

33. “Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes no victories without it.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

34. “We lose the peace of years when we hunt after the rapture of moments.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

35. “If a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good heart is a letter of credit.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

36. “And, of all the things upon earth, I hold that a faithful friend is the best.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

37. “What ever our wandering our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and in the middle of the objects more immediately within our reach.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

38. “The more a man desirous to pass at a value above his worth can contrast, by dignified silence, the garrulity of trivial minds, the more the world will give him credit for the wealth which he does not possess.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

39. “The easiest person to deceive is one’s self.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

40. “You know There are moments when silence, prolonged and unbroken, More expressive may be than all words ever spoken.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

41. “Power is so characteristically calm that calmness in itself has the aspect of power, and forbearance implies strength. The orator who is known to have at his command all the weapons of invective is most formidable when most courteous.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

42. “The real truthfulness of all works of imagination, sculpture, painting, and written fiction, is so purely in the imagination, that the artist never seeks to represent positive truth, but the idealized image of a truth.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

43. “There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

44. “Common sense is only a modification of talent. Genius is an exaltation of it. The difference is, therefore, in degree, not nature.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

45. “Nothing so good as a university education, nor worse than a university without its education.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

46. “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.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

47. “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.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

48. “Success never needs an excuse.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

49. “In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature, the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton

50. “If aught be worse than failure from overstress of a life’s prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success.”

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton