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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.

— Edward Bulwer-Lytton Richelieu (1839)

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Source and credibility

Wikiquote does not flag this quote as disputed or misattributed.

Source: Richelieu (1839), Act III, scene 1, line 4. Reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 596-97.
Work: Richelieu, 1839
Source quality: Secondhand citation Quoted from another book or article rather than from the original.

More by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The heart loves repose and the soul contemplation, but the mind needs action.

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

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

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

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

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Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance.

Zanoni (1842)

All doubt is cowardice — all trust is brave.

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

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Topics

Philosophy

More quotes by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Strike from mankind the principle of Faith, and men would have no more history than a flock of sheep.

Caxtoniana (1862)

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

Zanoni (1842)

Truth makes on the ocean of nature no one track of light—every eye looking on finds its own.

Caxtoniana (1862)

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!

The Last of the Barons (1843)

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

Richelieu (1839)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Edward Bulwer-Lytton (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.