Edward Bulwer-Lytton

You will remember that Albertus Magnus, after describing minutely the process by which spirits may be invoked and commanded, adds emphatically that the process will instruct and avail only to the few - that a man must be born a magician! - that is, born with a peculiar physical temperament, as a man is born a poet. Rarely are men in whose constitution lurks this occult power of the highest order of intellect - usually in the intellect there is some twist, perversity, or disease.' ("The House And The Brain")

To find what you seek in the road of life, the best proverb of all is that which says:"Leave no stone unturned.

And that date, too, is far off?''Far off; when it comes, think your end in this world is at hand!''How and what is the end? Look east, west, south and north.''In the north, where you never yet trod, towards the point whence your instincts have warned you, there a spectre will seize you. 'Tis Death! I see a ship - it is haunted - 'tis chased - it sails on. Baffled navies sail after that ship. It enters the regions of ice. It passes a sky red with meteors. Two moons stand on high, over ice-reefs. I see the ship locked between white defiles - they are ice-rocks. I see the dead strew the decks - stark and livid, green mold on their limbs. All are dead, but one man - it is you! But years, though so slowly they come, have then scathed you. There is the coming of age on your brow, and the will is relaxed in the cells of the brain. Still that will, though enfeebled, exceeds all that man knew before you, through the will you live on, gnawed with famine; and nature no longer obeys you in that death-spreading region; the sky is a sky of iron, and the air has iron clamps, and the ice-rocks wedge in the ship. Hark how it cracks and groans. Ice will imbed it as amber imbeds a straw. And a man has gone forth, living yet, from the ship and its dead; and he has clambered up the spikes of an iceberg, and the two moons gaze down on his form. That man is yourself; and terror is on you - terror; and terror has swallowed your will. And I see swarming up the steep ice-rock, grey grisly things. The bears of the north have scented their quarry - they come near you and nearer, shambling and rolling their bulk, and in that day every moment shall seem to you longer than the centuries through which you have passed. And heed this - after life, moments continued make the bliss or the hell of eternity.''Hush,' said the whisper; 'but the day, you assure me, is far off - very far! I go back to the almond and rose of Damascus! - sleep!' ("The House And The Brain

Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.

He who studies old books will always find in them something new, and he who reads new books will always find in them something old.

By degrees, the bitterness at my heart diffused itself to the circumference of the circle in which my life went its cheerless mechanical round.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

Take in the ideas of the day drain off those of yesterday. As to the morrow time enough to consider it when it becomes today.

Genius does what it must and talent does what it can.

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

A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry is to a woman.

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

When a person is down in the world an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.

The man who succeeds above his fellows is the one who early in life discerns his object and toward that object habitually directs his powers. Even genius itself is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.

The pen is mightier than the sword!

In life it is difficult to say who do you the most mischief enemies with the worst intentions or friends with the best.

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

Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm it moves stones it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity and truth accomplishes no victories without it.