A Quote by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Never get a reputation for a small perfection if you are trying for fame in a loftier area. The world can only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiae seldom have their minds occupied with great things.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Quote Topics

Area Attention Considerable Fame Generals Get Great Great Thing Great Things Judge Minds Minutiae Never Only Pay Perfection Reputation Sees Seldom Small Things Those Trying World

Quote Author

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
English - Writer
May 25, 1803 - January 18, 1873

I'm continuously playing this game of what's real and what's not real, and having to balance and judge and realize that there are things that carry real weight in the world and actually have power in them. And there are things that are just pointless, and you don't have to pay attention to those things.

Amandla Stenberg

From the simplest lyric to the most complex novel and densest drama, literature is asking us to pay attention. Pay attention to the frog. Pay attention to the west wind. Pay attention to the boy on the raft, the lady in the tower, the old man on the train. In sum, pay attention to the world and all that dwells therein and thereby learn at last to pay attention to yourself and all that dwells therein.

Frederick Buechner

Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors. Everyone knows this.

Joyce Carol Oates

Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: 'Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors.' Everyone knows this.

Joyce Carol Oates

You know, nothing comes free. If you want to chase fame, then fame has a price. You can't get convenient fame. You can't say, 'Hey! I want only the good things and for the bad things I do, look away.' So, if you crave for the spotlight, you pay for the spotlight.

Vikram Bhatt

It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creatingfuture dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.

Bertrand Russell

Pay attention to your friends; pay attention to that cousin that jumps up on the picnic table at the family reunion and goes a little too 'nutty,' you know what I mean? Pay attention to that aunt that's down in the basement that never comes upstairs. We have to pay attention to our friends, pay attention to your family, and offer a hand.

Jenifer Lewis

In an ideal world, you could reunite the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir with the Indian-occupied part and restore the old borders. You could have both India and Pakistan agreeing to guarantee those borders, demilitarise the area, and to invest in it economically. In a sane world that would happen, but we don't live in a sane world.

Salman Rushdie

What I'm doing is trying to get kids to pay attention, to look at the physical world more, and to question everything. I am trying to get kids out of the house and away from screens.

Keri Smith

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

I had so many outs in my career. I could have said, I don’t need this. I have money; I have fame; I have victories; I have Grand Slams. But when your love for something is bigger than all those things, you continue to keep getting up in the morning when it’s freezing outside, when you know that it can be the most difficult day, when nothing is working, when you feel like the belief sometimes isn’t there from the outside world, and you seem so small. But you can achieve great things when you don’t listen to all those things.

Maria Sharapova

To discover what you really believe, pay attention to the way you act -- and to what you do when things don't go the way you think they should. Pay attention to what you value. Pay attention to how and on what you spend your time. Your money. And pay attention to the way you eat.

Geneen Roth

Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.

George McGovern

Proust is interested in minutiae because life, as he sees it, is seldom ever about things but about our impression of things, not about facts but about the interpretation of facts, not about one particular feeling but about a confluence of conflicting feelings. Everything is elusive in Proust because nothing is ever certain.

Andre Aciman

The world sees only the reflection of merit; therefore when you come to know a really great man intimately, you may as often find him above as below his reputation.