Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

"Who knows nothing base Fears nothing known."

"Who seeks for aid Must show how service sought can be repaid."

"But, however we pass Time, he passes still, Passing away whatever the pastime, And, whether we use him well or ill, Some day he gives us the slip for the last time."

"Unseen hands delay The coming of what seems close in ken, And, contrary, the moment when we say "'Twill never come!" comes on us even then."

"O be very sure That no man will learn anything at all, Unless he first will learn humility."

"I loved you ere I knew you: know you now, And, having known you, love you better still."

"Genius does what it must, and Talent does what it can."

"That man is great, and he alone, Who serves a greatness not his own."

"Then did I feel as one who, much perplext, Led by strange legends and the light of stars Over long regions of the midnight sand Beyond the red tract of the Pyramids, Is suddenly drawn to look upon the sky From sense of unfamiliar light, and sees Reveal'd against the constellated cope The great cross of the South."

"There is a pleasure which is born of pain."

"Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem."

"The unknown Is life to love, religion, poetry."

"Oh, moment of sweet peril, perilous sweet! When woman joins herself to man."

"Ah, well! when time is flown, how it fled It is better neither to ask nor tell. Leave the dead moments to bury their dead."

"And the jasmin-flower in her fair young breast: (O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmin-flower!) And the one bird singing alone in his nest: And the one star over the tower."

"The world is fill'd 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."

"In the lives of most women and men There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back and be forgiven."

"A night of tears! for the gusty rain Had ceased, but the eaves were dripping yet; And the moon look'd forth, as tho' in pain, With her face al white and wet."

"The ages roll Forward; and, forward with them, draw my soul Into Time’s infinite sea. And to be glad or sad I care no more: But to have done, and to have been, before I cease to do and be!"

"Words, however, are things: and the man who accords To his language the license to outrage his soul Is controll'd by the words he disdains to control."

"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."

"Let any man show the world that he feels Afraid of its bark and ’t will fly at his heels: Let him fearlessly face it, ’t will leave him alone: But ’t will fawn at his feet if he flings it a bone."

"Whene'er I hear French spoken as I approve, I feel myself quietly falling in love."

"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 can not 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?"

"The world is a nettle; disturb it, it stings. Grasp it firmly, it stings not."

"We gain Justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain."

"'Twas a hand White, delicate, dimpled, warm, languid, and bland. The hand of a woman is often, in youth, Somewhat rough, somewhat red, somewhat graceless in truth; Does its beauty refine, as its pulses grow calm, Or as sorrow has cross'd the life-line in its palm."

"We are what we must, And not what we would be. I know that one hour Forestalls not another. The will and the power Are diverse."

"Rest is sweet after strife."

"When life leaps in the veins, when it beats in the heart, When it thrills as it fills every animate part, Where lurks it? How works it?.. we scarcely detect it."

"There's no weapon that slays Its victim so surely (if well aim'd) as praise."

"You know There are moments when silence, prolong'd and unbroken, More expressive may be than all words ever spoken."

"No true love can be without Its dread penalty—jealousy."

"Those true eyes Too pure and too honest in aught to disguise The sweet soul shining through them."

"Do not think that years leave us and find us the same!"

"Alas! must it be ever so? Do we stand in our own light, wherever we go, And fight our own shadows forever?"

"In life there are meetings which seem Like a fate."

"To all facts there are laws. The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause."

"We are our own fates. Our deeds Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made not for men's creeds, But men's actions."

"There is purpose in pain, Otherwise it were devilish."

"Life hath set No landmarks before us."

"Thought alone is eternal."

"'Tis more brave To live, than to die."

"As pure as a pearl, And as perfect: a noble and innocent girl."

"That's best Which God sends. 'Twas His will: it is mine."

"No star ever rose And set, without influence somewhere."

"No life Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife And all life not be purer and stronger thereby."

"Life is good; but not life in itself."

"The thing which must be, must be for the best."

"Art is Nature made by Man To Man the interpreter of God."