Playwrights From England

"Be prepared for either wisdom through joy, or wisdom through grief. Enough that, looking only through the mechanism by which this mortal world is impelled and improved, you know that cruelty is impossible to wisdom."

"Love gains the shrine when Pity opes the door."

"Why should the soul ever repose? God, its Principle, reposes never. While we speak, new worlds are sparkling forth—suns are throwing off their nebulae—nebulae are hardening into worlds. The Almighty proves His existence by creating."

"The sensation that is excited in the literary world by the simple announcement of a new work emanating from the pen of the talented E. L. Bulwer, is the precursor of the delight to be experienced by the perusal. Bulwer is the Napoleon of English literature—the great mover of that sphere in which he shines so resplendently—the individual whose magic quill, with one single drop of ink, can make thousands reflect. He is the metaphysician-novelist of England, as de Balzac is the pride of France. His works are not merely everyday books which we throw aside never to resume, after a hasty perusal: they are standard volumes in every library—they may occasionally serve as books of reference—their philosophy raises them to an eminence far above the common tale of interest purposely written to afford a momentary amusement."

"He never errs who sacrifices self."

"Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue."

"Happy the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!"

"Though Hope be a small child, she can carry a great anchor!"

"We commenced research where modern conjecture closes its faithless wings. And with us, those were the common elements of science which the sages of to-day disdain as wild chimeras, or despair of as unfathomable mysteries."

"Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny."

"To the man who aspires to know, no man who has been the meanest student of knowledge should be unknown."

"Night, to the earnest soul, opens the Bible of the Universe, and on the leaves of Heaven is written,—"God is everywhere!""

"Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance."

"Our glories float between the earth and heaven Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun, And are the playthings of the casual wind."

"When a person's down in the world, I think an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching."

"The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan."

"In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves For a bright manhood, there is no such word As "fail"."

""It is destiny!"—phrase of the weak human heart! "It is destiny!"—dark apology for every error! The strong and virtuous admit no destiny! On earth, guides Conscience—in heaven, watches God. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one—to dethrone the other!"

"Take away the sword— States can be saved without it!"

"Ambition has no risk."

"Little minds give importance to the man who gives importance to nothing."

"Rank is a great beautifier."

"Curse away! And let me tell thee, Beauseant, a wise proverb The Arabs have,—"Curses are like young chickens, And still come home to roost!""

"You speak As one who fed on poetry."

"Castles in the air cost a vast deal to keep up."

"Beauty, thou art twice blessed; thou blessest the gazer and the possessor; often at once the effect and the cause of goodness! A sweet disposition—a lovely soul—an affectionate nature—will speak in the eyes—the lips—the brows—and become the cause of beauty. On the other hand, they who have a gift that commands love, a key that opens all hearts, are ordinarily inclined to look with happy eyes upon the world—to be cheerful and serene—to hope and to confide. There is more wisdom than the vulgar dream of in our admiration of a fair face."

"There is an old age which has more youth of heart than youth itself!"

"Love hath no need of words."

"When the People have no other tyrant, their own public opinion becomes one."

"The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone."

"Books are waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought."

"There is no anguish like an error of which we feel ashamed."

"There is no tongue that flatters like a lover's; and yet, in the exaggeration of his feelings, flattery seems to him commonplace."

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

"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it is the real allegory of the tale of Orpheus—it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it."

"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!"

"Light literature,—that grace and flower of human culture, that best philosophy of all, humanizing us with gentle art, making us wise through the humours, elevated through the passions, tender in the affections of our kind."

"Poverty makes some humble, but more malignant."

"The magic of the tongue is the most dangerous of all spells."

"Love is a very contradiction of all the elements of our ordinary nature: it makes the proud man meek,—the cheerful, sad,—the high-spirited, tame; our strongest resolutions, our hardiest energy, fall before it. Believe me, you cannot prophesy of its future effect in a man from any knowledge of his past character."

"Repent!—that is the idlest word in our language."

"It is not Wisdom, but Ignorance, which teaches men presumption; Genius may be sometimes arrogant, but nothing is so diffident as Knowledge."

"He is certainly a man who bathes and "lives cleanly," (two especial charges preferred against him by Messrs. the Great Unwashed)."

"Fate laughs at probabilities."

"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."

"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."

"There is no society, however free and democratic, where wealth will not create an aristocracy."

"A good heart is better than all the heads in the world."

"Buy my flowers—O buy—I pray! The blind girl comes from afar; If the earth be as fair as her children say, These flowers her children are!"

"The easiest person to deceive is one’s own self."