Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton Quotes

Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.

Even as I stand here and admit that we have made mistakes I still believe that as the people of America sit in judgment on each party, they will recognize that our mistakes were mistakes of the heart. They'll recognize that.

Passion, prejudice, and error, are characteristics of human nature ….. Literary talents may be prostituted, and the powers of genius debased to subserve the purposes of ambition or avarice.

It is a strange thing in human life, that the greatest errors both of men and women often spring from their sweetest and most generous qualities; and so, undoubtedly, thousands of warm-hearted, sympathetic, and impulsive persons have joined the Rebels, not from any real zeal from the cause, but because, between two conflicting loyalties, they chose that which necessarily lay nearest the heart. There never existed any other Government against which treason was so easy

And truly it is a very natural and ordinary thing to desire to acquire, and always, when men do it who can, they will be praised or not blamed; but when they cannot, and wish to do it anyway, here lies the error and the blame.

Who could have foretold the heart grows old from touching others

The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale.

The most precise and thoughtful scholar is limited in what he knows and wrong in some things that he affirms; the most devoted saint is stained with sin and full of error; the bravest heart among us will fail and break; but Christ is altogether lovely, holy, and unfailing.

But success shall crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have gone, tracking a secure way over the pathless seas: the very stars themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

It is only that my illusion is more real to me than reality. And so do we often build our world on an error, and cry out that the universe is falling to pieces, if any one but lift a finger to replace the error by truth.

The most persistent principles in the universe are accident and error.

Youth is no less vulnerable, by the very quality it has of making the heart ache that beholds and has lost it.

Go ahead, fail. Try to avoid mistakes, though.

Divide by cucumber error. Please reinstall universe and reboot.

The dream in your heart may be bigger than the environment in which you find yourself. Sometimes you have to get out of that environment in order to see your dream fulfilled.

Electra Heart is the antithesis of everything I stand for. And the point of introducing her and building a concept around her is that she stands for the corrupt side of American ideology, and basically that's the corruption of yourself. My worst fear - that's anyone's worst fear - is to lose myself and become an empty person. And that happens a lot when you're very ambitious.

Champions get what they want because they know what they want. They have a vision that keeps them motivated and efficiently on track. They see it, feel it, and experience it in their minds and hearts. What is success for you? You won't get there without knowing what it feels and looks like.

Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another's fame.

O ye powers that search The heart of man, and weigh his inmost thoughts, If I have done amiss, impute it not! The best may err, but you are good.

The thoughts of Youth are long, long thoughts

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous goans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours.

The only people, scientific or other, who never make mistakes are those who do nothing.

Mankind's greatest error, the biggest deception of the past thousand years is this: to confuse poverty with stupidity.

This youthful heart can love you and give you what you need, but I'm too old to go chasing you around wasting my precious energy.

The monkish vows keep us far from that sink of vice that is the female body, but often they bring us close to other errors. Can I finally hide from myself the fact that even today my old age is still stirred by the noonday demon when my eyes, in choir, happen to linger on the beardless face of a novice, pure and fresh as a maidens?