Thomas Carlyle

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.

Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.

Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.

Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness.

It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.

The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.