Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton Quotes

1831–1891 England

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (8 November, 1831 – 24 November, 1891) was an English statesman, serving as Viceroy of India; and poet, under the pen name of Owen Meredith.

England
Academics
Novelists
Poets

Also known as: Edward Robert, Meredith, Owen, Owen Meredith

Random Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton quote

75 quotes

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

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.

Lucile (1860)

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

Lucile (1860)

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

When time is flown, how it fled
It is better neither to ask nor tell,
Leave the dead moments to bury their dead.

For only by knowledge of that which is not
Thyself shall thyself be learn'd.

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

Lucile (1860)

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

No star ever rose
And set, without influence somewhere.

Lucile (1860)

Are not great
Men the models of nations?

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

Lucile (1860)

They only fall, that strive to move,
Or lose, that care to keep.

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

Lucile (1860)

We are but as the instrument of heaven.
Our work is not design, but destiny.

Clytemnestra and Other Poems (1855)

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

The Wanderer (1859)

There's nothing certain in man's life but this:
That he must lose it.

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.

Lucile (1860)

Life hath set
No landmarks before us.

Lucile (1860)

Life is good; but not life in itself.

Chronicles and Characters (1868)

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

Lucile (1860)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.