Thomas Carlyle

A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.

We are firm believers in the maxim that for all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

In every man's writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded.

I came hither [Craigenputtoch] solely with the design to simplify my way of life and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself.

Literary men are...a perpetual priesthood.

The three great elements of modern civilization, gunpowder, printing, and the Protestant religion.

He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.

The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love ; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with; as if, observes our author himself, any originality but our own could be expected to content us! In fact all strange thing are apt, without fault of theirs, to …

The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,—imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper …

A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

What is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?

For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.

A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.

This great maxim of Philosophy he had gathered by the teaching of nature alone: That man was created to work, not to speculate, or feel, or dream.

The unspeakable Turk

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history books!

"Genius" (which means transcendent capacity of taking trouble, first of all).

He that works and does some Poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of Poet.

So here hath been dawning Another blue Day: Think wilt thou let it Slip useless away.

I know not whether this book is worth anything, nor what the world will do with it, or misdo, or entirely forbear to do, as is likeliest; but this I could tell the world: You have not had for a hundred years any book that comes more direct …

The Public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble.