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Ambition has no rest!
Topic: Ambition
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1)
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The brilliant chief, irregularly great,
Frank, haughty, rash--the Rupert of debate.
Topic: Argument
Source: The New Timon (pt. I)
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He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who
writes verses builds it in granite.
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,
Topic: Authorship
Source: Caxtoniana--Essay XXVII--The Spirit of Conservation
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No author ever drew a character, consistent to human nature, but
what he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies.
Topic: Authorship
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. IV, ch. XIV, heading)
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Laws die, Books never.
Topic: Books
Source: Richelieu (act I, sc. 2)
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Hark, the world so loud,
And they, the movers of the world, so still!
Topic: Books
Source: The Souls of Books (st. 3, l. 14)
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We call some books immortal! Do they live?
If so, believe me, Time hath made them pure.
In Books, the veriest wicked rest in peace.
Topic: Books
Source: The Souls of Books (st. 3, l. 22)
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The Wise
(Minstrel or Sage,) out of their books are clay;
But in their books, as from their graves they rise.
Angels--that, side by side, upon our way,
Walk with and warn us!
Topic: Books
Source: The Souls of Books (st. 3, l. 9)
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All books grow homilies by time; they are
Temples, at once, and Landmarks.
Topic: Books
Source: The Souls of Books (st. 4, l. 1)
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There is no Past, so long as Books shall live!
Topic: Books
Source: The Souls of Books (st. 4, l. 9)
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In you are sent
The types of Truths whose life is The To Come;
In you soars up the Adam from the fall;
In you the Future as the Past is given--
Ev'n in our death ye bid us hail our birth;--
Unfold these pages, and behold the Heaven,
Without one grave-stone left upon the Earth.
Topic: Books
Source: The Souls of Books (st. 5, l. 11)
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Business dispatched is business well done, but business hurried
is business ill done.
Topic: Business
Source: Caxtoniana (essay XXVI, Readers and Writer)
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A man who has no excuse for a crime, is indeed defenceless!
Topic: Crime
Source: The Lady of Lyons (act IV, sc. 1)
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There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets
to the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct
from the ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our
seasons, yet true to their own laws, potent in their own
influences.
Topic: Destiny
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. II, ch. XIV)
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Come, Death, and snatch me from disgrace.
Topic: Disgrace
Source: Richelieu (act IV, sc. 1)
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Whatever the number of a man's friends, there will be times in
his life when he has one too few; but if he has only one enemy,
he is lucky indeed if he has not one too many.
Topic: Enemies
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. IX, ch. III, introduction)
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I have wrought great use out of evil tools.
Topic: Evil
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1, l. 49)
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It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to
triumph.
Topic: Evil
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1, l. 49)
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men
to do nothing.
Topic: Evil
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1, l. 49)
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The learned compute that seven hundred and seven millions of
millions of vibrations have penetrate the eye before the eye can
distinguish the tints of a violet.
Topic: Eyes
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. VIII, ch. II)
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Showing that if a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good
heart is a letter of credit.
Topic: Faces
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. II, title of ch. XI)
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In the lexicon of youth, which
Fate reserves for a bright manhood, there is no such word
As--fail!
Topic: Failure
Source: Richelieu (act II, sc. 2)
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Never say
"Fail" again.
Topic: Failure
Source: Richelieu (act II, sc. 2)
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Who that has loved knows not the tender tale
Which flowers reveal, when lips are coy to tell?
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,
Topic: Flowers
Source: Corn Flowers--The First Violets (bk. I, st. 1)
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Fool me no fools.
Topic: Folly
Source: Last Days of Pompeii (bk. III, ch. 6)
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There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend
sincere enough to tell him disagreeable truths.
Topic: Friends
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. II, ch. XIV)
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Dear Land to which Desire forever flees;
Time doth no present to our grasp allow,
Say in the fixed Eternal shall we seize
At last the fleeting Now?
Topic: Future
Source: Corn Flowers (bk. I, The First Violets)
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Two lives that once part, are as ships that divide
When, moment on moment, there rushes between
The one and the other, a sea;--
Ah, never can fall from the days that have been
A gleam on the years that shall be!
Topic: Meeting
Source: A Lament (l. 10)
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Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Topic: Pen
Source: Richelieu (act II, sc. 2)
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Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven;
And bright with beckoning angels--but alas!
We see thee like the patriarch, but in dreams,
By the first step,--dull slumbering on the earth.
Topic: Philosophy
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1, l. 4)
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You speak
As one who fed on poetry.
Topic: Poetry
Source: Richelieu (act I, sc. 1)
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Poets alone are sure of immortality; they are the truest diviners
of nature.
Topic: Poets
Source: Caxtoniana (essay XXVII)
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If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be
a considerable loser. Did I publish all I admire, out of
sympathy with the author, I should be a ruined man.
Topic: Publishing
Source: My Novel (bk. VI, ch. XIV)
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In science, read, by preference, the newest works; in literature,
the oldest. The classic literature is always modern.
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton,
Topic: Reading
Source: Caxtoniana--Hints on Mental Culture
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A reform is a correction of abuses; a revolution is a transfer of
power.
Topic: Revolution
Source: Speech, in the House of Commons, on the Reform Bill
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Three things are ever silent--Thought, Destiny, and the Grave.
Topic: Silence
Source: Harold (bk. X, ch. II)
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I am as one who is left alone at a banquet, the lights dead and
the flowers faded.
Topic: Solitude
Source: The Last Days of Pompeii (ch. V)
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Alone!--That worn-out word,
So idly spoken, and so coldly heard;
Yet all that poets sing, and grief hath known,
Of hope laid waste, knells in that word--Alone!
Topic: Solitude
Source: New Timon (pt. II)
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When stars are in the quiet skies,
Then most I pine for thee;
Bend on me then thy tender eyes,
As stars look on the sea.
Topic: Stars
Source: When Stars are in the Quiet Skies
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It is strange so great a statesman should
Be so sublime a poet.
Topic: Statesmanship
Source: Richelieu (act I, sc. 2)
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No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
Topic: Thieving
Source: Hudibras (pt. II, canto I, l. 273)
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--To live
On means not yours--be brave in silks and laces,
Gallant in steeds; splendid in banquets; all
Not yours. Given, uninherited, unpaid for;
This is to be a trickster; and to filch
Men's art and labour, which to them is wealth,
Life, daily bread;--quitting all scores with "friend,
You're troublesome!" Why this, forgive me,
Is what, when done with a less dainty grace,
Plain folks call "Theft."
Topic: Thieving
Source: Richelieu (act I, sc. 2)
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Thought is valuable in proportion as it is generative.
Topic: Thought
Source: Caxtoniana (essay XIV)
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Time is money.
Topic: Time
Source: Money (act III, sc. 3)
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Truth makes on the ocean of nature no one track of light--every
eye looking on finds its own.
Topic: Truth
Source: Caxtoniana (essay XIV)
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Arm thyself for the truth!
Topic: Truth
Source: Lady of Lyons (act V, sc. 1)
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Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny. When
two men shake hands and part, mark which of the two takes the
sunny side; he will be the younger man of the two.
Topic: Youth
Source: What Will He Do With It? (bk. II, heading of ch. XV)
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