Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton
In life there are meetings which seem Like a fate.Collection: Fate
Those true eyes, Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise, The sweet soul shining through them.Collection: Sweet
The man who seeks one thing in life and but one, May hope to achieve it before life is done; But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows, A harvest of barren regrets.Collection: Regret
That man is great, and he alone, Who serves a greatness not his own, For neither praise nor self: Content to know and be unknown: Whole in himself.Collection: Greatness
No star ever rose or set without influence somewhere.Collection: Stars
Since we parted yester eve, I do love thee, love, believe, Twelve times dearer, twelve hours longer,- One dream deeper, one night stronger, One sun surer,-thus much more Than I loved thee, love, before.Collection: Dream
Rest is sweet after strife.Collection: Sweet
We are our own fates.- Our deeds are our own doomsmen.- Man's life was made not for creeds but actions.Collection: Life
There is purpose in pain; otherwise it were devilish.Collection: Pain
We may live without poetry, music and art; We may live without conscience, and live without heart; We may live without friends; we may live without books; But civilized man cannot live without cooks. . . . He may live without books,-what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love,-what is passion but pining? But where is the man that can live without dining?Collection: Art
The world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings. Grasp it firmly, it stings not.Collection: World
We are but as the instrument of Heaven.Collection: Destiny
The world is filled with folly and sin, And Love must cling, where it can, I say: For Beauty is easy enough to win; But one isn't loved every day.Collection: Birthday
Master books, but do not let them master you. - Read to live, not live to read.Collection: Inspirational
No one will learn anything at all, unless one first will learn humility.Collection: Humility
Good -humor is goodness and wisdom combined.Collection: Humor
Sorrows humanize our race; tears are the showers that fertilize the world.Collection: Race
We gain justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain.Collection: Years
It is, however, not to the museum, or the lecture-room, or the drawing- school, but to the library, that we must go for the completion of our humanity. It is books that bear from age to age the intellectual wealth of the world.Collection: Book
Great sorrow makes sacred the sufferer.Collection: Sorrow
Heaven's slow but sure redress of human ills.Collection: Justice
There is a pleasure that is born of pain.Collection: Pain
Whenever I hear French spoken as I approve, I find myself quietly falling in love.Collection: Love
Unseen hands delay The coming of what oft seems close in ken, And, contrary, the moment, when we say "'Twill never come!" comes on us even then.Collection: Destiny
Alas! must it ever be so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever?Collection: Fighting
Life is good, but not life in itself.Collection: Life
Only by knowledge of that which is not thyself, shall thyself be learned.Collection: Knowledge
No life can be pure in its purpose, and strong in its strife, and all life not be purer and stronger thereby.Collection: Life
Thought alone is eternal.Collection: Eternal
Do not think that years leave us and find us the same!Collection: Change
Art is Nature made by Man, To Man the interpreter of God.Collection: Art
That's best Which God sends. 'Twas His will: it is mine.Collection: Providence
Who knows nothing base, Fears nothing known.Collection: Character
No true love there can be without Its dread penalty--jealousy.Collection: Jealousy
They only fall, that strive to move, Or lose, that care to keep.Collection: Moving