Ben-Hur Quotes

“Riches take wings, comforts vanish, hope withers away,but love stays with us. Love is God.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The happiness of love is in action; its test is what one is willing to do for others.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The architect had not stopped to bother about columns and porticos, proportions or interiors, or any limitation upon the epic he sought to materialize; he had simply made a servant of Nature - art can go no further.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“It is more beautiful to trust in God. The beautiful in this world is all from his hand, declaring the perfection of taste; he is the author of all form; he clothes the lily, he colours the rose, he distils the dewdrop, he makes the music of nature; in a word, he organized us for this life, and imposed its conditions; and they are such guaranty to me that, trustful as a little child, I leave to him the organization of my Soul, and every arrangement for the life after death. I know he loves me.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Youth is but the painted shell within which, continually growing, lives that wondrous thing the spirit of a man, biding its moment of apparition, earlier in some than in others.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Men speak of dreaming as if it were a phenomenon of night and sleep. They should know better. All results achieved by us are self-promised, and all self-promises are made in dreams awake. Dreaming is the relief of labor,the wine that sustains us in act. We learn to love labor, not for itself, but for the opportunity it furnishes for dreaming, which is the great under-monotone of real life, unheard, unnoticed, because of its constancy. Living is dreaming. Only in the graves are there no dreams.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“What children we are, even the wisest! When God walks the earth, his steps are often centuries apart.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ: Library Edition: Includes PDF eBooks

“To begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Knowledge leaves no room for chances.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Perfection is God; simplicity is perfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let truths like these alone.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Pride is never so loud as when in chains.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Religion is merely the law which binds man to his Creator: in purity it has but these elements--God, the Soul, and their Mutual Recognition; out of which, when put in practise, spring Worship, Love, and Reward.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Believing in God, invisible yet supreme, I also believed it possible so to yearn for him with all my soul that he would take compassion and give me answer.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Would you hurt a man keenest, strike at his self-love; would you hurt a woman worst, aim at her affections.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Latin is an abomination!”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“We of the sea come to know each other quickly; our loves, like our hates, are born of sudden dangers.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“They to whom a boy comes asking, Who am I, and what am I to be? have need of ever so much care. Each word in answer may prove to the after-life what each finger-touch of the artist is to the clay he is modelling.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or in the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Heaven may be won, not by the sword, not by human wisdom, but by Faith, Love, and Good Works.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“A word as to the pleasure there is in the thought of a Soul in each of us. In the first place, it robs death of its terrors by making dying a change for the better, and burial but the planting of a seed from which there will spring a new life.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“As a rule, there is no surer way to the dislike of men than to behave well where they have behaved badly.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“Death, you know, keeps secrets better even than a guilty Roman.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“From the depths of the well I had discovered a light above, and yearned to go up and see what all it shone upon. At last--ah, with what years of toil!--I stood in the perfect day, and beheld the principle of life, the element of religion, the link between the soul and God--Love!”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The most perfect life develops as a circle, and terminates in its beginning, making it impossible to say, This is the commencement, that the end.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“It is neither wise nor honest to detract from beauty as a quality. There cannot be a refined soul insensible to its influence.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“For to-day I take or give;
For to-day I drink and live;
For to-day I beg or borrow;
Who knows about the silent morrow?”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“And who in this age can carry the faith of men to such a point but God himself? To redeem the race— I do not mean to destroy it— to redeem the race, he must make himself once more manifest; he must come in person.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“A man is never so on trial as in the moment of excessive good-fortune.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“I see, I see! From association Messala, in boyhood, was almost a Jew; had he remained here, he might have become a proselyte, so much do we all borrow from the influences that ripen our lives; but the years in Rome have been too much for him. I do not wonder at the change; yet”--her voice fell--“he might have dealt tenderly at least with you. It is a hard, cruel nature which in youth can forget its first loves.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“The enemy of man is man, my brother.”
― Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ