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The Man Who Cannot Wonder, Who Does Not Habitually Wonder (and Worship), Were He President Of Innumerable Royal Societies, And Carried The Whole Mecanique Celeste And Hegel's Philosophy, And The Epitome Of All Laboratories And Observatories With Their Results, In His Single Head, Is But A Pair Of Spectacles Behind Which There Is No Eye. Let Those Who Have Eyes Look Through Him, Then He May Be Useful.

-Thomas Carlyle

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The Man Who Cannot

Thomas Carlyle

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The Man Who Cannot Wonder, Who Does Not Habitually Wonder (and Worship), Were He President Of Innumerable Royal Societies, And Carried The Whole Mecanique Celeste And Hegel's Philosophy, And The Epitome Of All Laboratories And Observatories With Their Results, In His Single Head, Is But A Pair Of Spectacles Behind Which There Is No Eye. Let Those Who Have Eyes Look Through Him, Then He May Be Useful.

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He Who Would Write Heroic Poems Should Make His Whole Life A Heroic Poem.

Why Did Not Somebody Teach Me The Constellations, And Make Me At Home In The Starry Heavens, Which Are Always Overhead, And Which I Don't Half Know To This Day?

The Suffering Man Ought Really To Consume His Own Smoke; There Is No Good In Emitting Smoke Till You Have Made It Into Fire.

I've Got A Great Ambition To Die Of Exhaustion Rather Than Boredom.

A Person With A Clear Purpose Will Make Progress, Even On The Roughest Road. A Person With No Purpose Will Make No Progress, Even On The Smoothest Road.

Science Must Have Originated In The Feeling That Something Was Wrong.

The Universe Is But One Vast Symbol Of God.

Why Tell Me That A Man Is A Fine Speaker, If It Is Not The Truth That He Is Speaking?

There Is Often More Spiritual Force In A Proverb Than In Whole Philosophical Systems.

Dinners Are Defined As 'the Ultimate Act Of Communion;' Men That Can Have Communion In Nothing Else, Can Sympathetically Eat Together, Can Still Rise Into Some Glow Of Brotherhood Over Food And Wine.

Man's Unhappiness, As I Construe, Comes Of His Greatness; It Is Because There Is An Infinite In Him, With Which All His Cunning He Cannot Quite Bury Under The Finite... Try Him With Half Of A Universe, Of An Omnipotence, He Sets To Quarreling With The Proprietor Of The Other Half, And Declares Himself The Most Maltreated Of Men. Always There Is A Black Spot In Our Sunshine: It Is Even, As I Said, The Shadow Of Ourselves.

If What You Have Done Is Unjust, You Have Not Succeeded.

He That Has Done Nothing Has Known Nothing.

In Idleness There Is A Perpetual Despair.

Consider In Fact, A Body Of Six Hundred And Fifty-eight Miscellaneous Persons, Set To Consult About "business," With Twenty-seven Millions, Mostly Fools, Assiduously Listening To Them, And Checking And Criticising Them. Was There Ever, Since The World Began, Will There Ever Be Till The World End, Any "business" Accomplished In These Circumstances?

I Have Seen Gleams In The Face And Eyes Of The Man That Have Let You Look Into A Higher Country.

They Wrong Man Greatly Who Say He Is To Be Seduced By Ease. Difficulty, Abnegation, Martyrdom, Death Are The Allurements That Act On The Heart Of Man.

The Old Cathedrals Are Good, But The Great Blue Dome That Hangs Over Everything Is Better.

Time Is The Silent, Never-resting Thing ... Rolling, Rushing On, Swift, Silent, Like An All-embracing Oceantide, On Which We And All The Universe Swim.

He Who Takes Not Counsel Of The Unseen And Silent, From Him Will Never Come Real Visibility And Speech.

Action Hangs, As It Were, Dissolved In Speech, In Thoughts Whereof Speech Is The Shadow; And Precipitates Itself Therefrom. The Kind Of Speech In A Man Betokens The Kind Of Action You Will Get From Him.

Beautiful It Is, And A Gleam From The Same Eternal Pole-star Visible Amid The Destinies Of Men, That All Talent, All Intellect, Is In The First Plane Moral. What A World Were This Otherwise!

Experience Is The Best Of School Masters, Only The School Fees Are Heavy.

Leaders: Captains Of Industry.

Without Oblivion, There Is No Remembrance Possible. When Both Oblivion And Memory Are Wise, When The General Soul Of Man Is Clear, Melodious, True, There May Come A Modern Iliad As Memorial Of The Past.

I Have No Patience Whatever With These Gorilla Damnifications Of Humanity.

Out Of Eternity The New Day Is Born; Into Eternity At Night Will Return.

All That Mankind Has Done, Thought Or Been: It Is Lying As In Magic Preservation In The Pages Of Books.

This London City, With All Of Its Houses, Palaces, Steam-engines, Cathedrals, And Huge Immeasurable Traffic An Tumult, What Is It But A Thought, But Millions Of Thoughts Made Into One-a Huge Immeasurable Spirit Of A Thought, Embodied In Brick, In Iron, Smoke, Dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, And The Rest Of It! Not A Brick Was Made But Some Man Had To Think Of The Making Of That Brick.

Our Works Are The Mirror Wherein The Spirit First Sees Its Natural Lineaments. Hence, Too, The Folly Of That Impossible Precept, Know Theyself; Till It Be Translated Into This Partially Possible One, Know What Thou Canst Work At.

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.

It Is Well Said, In Every Sense, That A Man's Religion Is The Chief Fact With Regard To Him.

I Never Heard Tell Of Any Clever Man That Came Of Entirely Stupid People.

Providence Has Given To The French The Empire Of The Land, To The English That Of The Sea, To The Germans That Of--the Air!

Hunger Whets Everything, Especially Suspicion And Indignation.

It Is The First Of All Problems For A Man To Find Out What Kind Of Work He Is To Do In This Universe.

Show Me The Person You Honor, For I Know Better By That The Kind Of Person You Are. For You Show Me What Your Idea Of Humanity Is.

A Man Protesting Against Error Is On The Way Towards Uniting Himself With All Men That Believe In Truth.

Woe To Him, . . . Who Has No Court Of Appeal Against The World's Judgment.

History Is The Essence Of Innumerable Biographies.

For, Strictly Considered, 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?

The Essence Of Humor Is Sensibility; Warm, Tender Fellow-feeling With All Forms Of Existence.

The True Sovereign Of The World, Who Moulds The World Like Soft Wax, According To His Pleasure, Is He Who Lovingly Sees Into The World.

The Mathematics Of High Achievement

By Nature Man Hates Change; Seldom Will He Quit His Old Home Till It Has Actually Fallen Around His Ears.

The Orator Persuades And Carries All With Him, He Knows Not How; The Rhetorician Can Prove That He Ought To Have Persuaded And Carried All With Him.

A Strong Mind Always Hopes, And Has Always Cause To Hope.

With Stupidity And Sound Digestion, Man May Front Much.

Who Is It That Loves Me And Will Love Me Forever With An Affection Which No Chance, No Misery, No Crime Of Mine Can Do Away? It Is You, My Mother.

Worship Of A Hero Is Transcendent Admiration Of A Great Man.

To The Wisest Man, Wide As Is His Vision. Nature Remains Of Quite Infinite Depth, Of Quite Infinite Expansion And All Experience Thereof Limits Itself To Some Few Computed Centuries And Measured Square Miles.

There Is But One Temple In This Universe: The Body. We Speak To God Whenever We Lay Our Hands Upon It.

A Fair Day's Wage For A Fair Day's Work": It Is As Just A Demand As Governed Men Ever Made Of Governing. It Is The Everlasting Right Of Man.

What Are Your Historical Facts Still More Your Biographical Wilt Thou Know A Man By Stringing-together Beadrolls Of What Thou Namest Facts

The Dead Are All Holy, Even They That Were Base And Wicked While Alive. Their Baseness And Wickedness Was Not They, Was But The Heavy And Unmanageable Environment That Lay Round Them.

Great Men Are The Modelers, Patterns, And In A Wide Sense Creators, Of Whatsoever The General Mass Of Men Contrived To Do And Attain.

We Are Not Altogether Here To Tolerate. We Are Here To Resist, To Control And Vanquish Withal.

If Hero Means Sincere Man, Why May Not Every One Of Us Be A Hero?

Poverty, We May Say, Surrounds A Man With Ready-made Barriers, Which If They Do Mournfully Gall And Hamper, Do At Least Prescribe For Him, And Force On Him, A Sort Of Course And Goal; A Safe And Beaten, Though A Circuitous, Course. A Great Part Of His Guidance Is Secure Against Fatal Error, Is Withdrawn From His Control. The Rich, Again, Has His Whole Life To Guide, Without Goal Or Barrier, Save Of His Own Choosing, And, Tempted, Is Too Likely To Guide It Ill.

Conclusive Facts Are Inseparable From Inconclusive Except By A Head That Already Understands And Knows.

Poetry Is The Attempt Which Man Makes To Render His Existence Harmonious.

All Sorts Of Heroes Are Intrinsically Of The Same Material; That Given A Great Soul, Open To The Divine Significance Of Life, Then There Is Given A Man Fit To Speak Of This, To Sing Of This, To Fight And Work For This, In A Great, Victorious, Enduring Manner; There Is Given A Hero, -- The Outward Shape Of Whom Will Depend On The Time And The Environment He Finds Himself In.

If You Are Ever In Doubt As To Whether To Kiss A Pretty Girl, Always Give Her The Benefit Of The Doubt.

Wealth Has More And More Increased, And At The Same Time Gathered Itself More And More Into Masses, Strangely Altering The Old Relations, And Increasing The Distance Between The Rich And The Poor.

If I Had My Way, The World Would Hear A Pretty Stern Command - Exit Christ.

Happy The People Whose Annals Are Blank In History Books!

All Evil Is Like A Nightmare; The Instant You Stir Under It, The Evil Is Gone.

Neither Let Mistakes And Wrong Directions - Of Which Every Man, In His Studies And Elsewhere, Falls Into Many - Discourage You. There Is Precious Instruction To Be Got By Finding That We Are Wrong. Let A Man Try Faithfully, Manfully To Be Right, He Will Grow Daily More And More Right. It Is, At Bottom, The Condition Which All Men Have To Cultivate Themselves. Our Very Walking Is An Incessant Falling - A Falling And A Catching Of Ourselves Before We Come Actually To The Pavement! - It Is Emblematic Of All Things A Man Does.

Writing Is A Dreadful Labor, Yet Not So Dreadful As Idleness.

Whoso Has Sixpence Is Sovereign (to The Length Of Sixpence) Over All Men; Commands Cooks To Feed Him, Philosophers To Teach Him, Kings To Mount Guard Over Him,to The Length Of Sixpence.

The Greatest Fault Is To Be Conscious Of None.

Every Noble Crown Is, And On Earth Will Forever Be, A Crown Of Thorns.

Great Is Journalism. Is Not Every Able Editor A Ruler Of The World, Being The Persuader Of It?

In This World There Is One Godlike Thing, The Essence Of All That Was Or Ever Will Be Of Godlike In This World: The Veneration Done To Human Worth By The Hearts Of Men.

An Everlasting Lodestar, That Beams The Brighter In The Heavens The Darker Here On Earth Grows The Night.

How Indestructibly The Good Grows, And Propagates Itself, Even Among The Weedy Entanglements Of Evil.

Wonder Is The Basis Of Worship.

No Sadder Proof Can Be Given By A Man Of His Own Littleness Than Disbelief In Great Men.

Ever, As Before, Does Madness Remain A Mysterious-terrific, Altogether Infernal Boiling-up Of The Nether Chaotic Deep, Through This Fair-painted Vision Of Creation, Which Swims Thereon, Which We Name The Real.

Speech Is Great, But Silence Is Greater.

Histories Are A Kind Of Distilled Newspapers.

God Gave You That Gifted Tongue Of Yours, And Set It Between Your Teeth, To Make Known Your True Meaning To Us, Not To Be Rattled Like A Muffin Man's Bell.

I Don't Pretend To Understand The Universe - It's A Great Deal Bigger Than I Am.

Happy Season Of Childhood! Kind Nature, That Art To All A Bountiful Mother; That Visitest The Poor Man's Hut With Auroral Radiance; And For Thy Nursling Hast Provided A Soft Swathing Of Love And Infinite Hope Wherein He Waxes And Slumbers, Danced Round By Sweetest Dreams!

Contented Saturnine Human Figures, A Dozen Or So Of Them, Sitting Around A Large Long Table...perfect Equality Is To Be The Rule; No Rising Or Notice Taken When Anybody Enters Or Leaves. Let The Entering Man Take His Place And Pipe, Without Obligatory Remarks; If He Cannot Smoke...let Him At Least Affect To Do So, And Not Ruffle The Established Stream Of Things.

The True Church Of England, At This Moment, Lies In The Editors Of The Newspapers.

Silence, The Great Empire Of Silence: Higher Than All Stars; Deeper Than The Kingdom Of Death! It Alone Is Great; All Else Is Small.

Courtesy Is The Due Of Man To Man; Not Of Suit-of-clothes To Suit-of-clothes.

The Latest Gospel In This World Is, Know Thy Work And Do It.

A Man Perfects Himself By Working. Foul Jungles Are Cleared Away, Fair Seed-fields Rise Instead, And Stately Cities; And With The Man Himself First Ceases To Be A Jungle, And Foul Unwholesome Desert Thereby. The Man Is Now A Man.

Custom Doth Make Dotards Of Us All.

In Our Wide World There Is But One Altogether Fatal Personage, The Dunce,--he That Speaks Irrationally, That Sees Not, And Yet Thinks He Sees.

Innumerable Are The Illusions And Legerdemain-tricks Of Custom: But Of All Of These, Perhaps The Cleverest Is Her Knack Of Persuading Us That The Miraculous, By Simple Repetition, Ceases To Be Miraculous.

Is Man’s Civilization Only A Wrappage, Through Which The Savage Nature Of Him Can Still Burst, Infernal As Ever?

Genius Is An Infinite Capacity For Taking Pains.

If An Eloquent Speaker Speak Not The Truth, Is There A More Horrid Kind Of Object In Creation?

There Can Be No Acting Or Doing Of Any Kind Till It Be Recognized That There Is A Thing To Be Done; The Thing Once Recognized, Doing In A Thousand Shapes Becomes Possible.

True Humor Springs Not More From The Head Than From The Heart. It Is Not Contempt; Its Essence Is Love. It Issues Not In Laughter, But In Still Smiles, Which Lie Far Deeper.

Nothing That Was Worthy In The Past Departs; No Truth Or Goodness Realized By Man Ever Dies, Or Can Die.

The Lies (western Slander) Which Well-meaning Zeal Has Heaped Round This Man (muhammad) Are Disgraceful To Ourselves Only.

Man Is A Tool-using Animal.

How Great A Possibility, How Small A Realized Result.

Fame, We May Understand, Is No Sure Test Of Merit, But Only A Probability Of Such: It Is An Accident, Not A Property, Of A Man; Like Light, It Can Give Little Or Nothing, But At Most May Show What Is Given.

Quackery Gives Birth To Nothing; Gives Death To All Things.

He Who Cannot Withal Keep His Mind To Himself Cannot Practice Any Considerable Thing Whatsoever.

What An Enormous Magnifier Is Tradition! How A Thing Grows In The Human Memory And In The Human Imagination, When Love, Worship, And All That Lies In The Human Heart, Is There To Encourage It

The Coldest Word Was Once A Glowing New Metaphor.

If You Are Looking At Data Over And Over You Better Be Taking Away Valuable Insight Every Time. If You Are Constantly Looking At Data That Isn't Leading To Strategic Action Stop Wasting Your Time And Look For More Actionable Analytics.

Venerable To Me Is The Hard Hand,--crooked, Coarse,--wherein, Notwithstanding, Lies A Cunning Virtue, Indispensably Royal As Of The Sceptre Of The Planet.

Democracy Will Itself Accomplish The Salutary Universal Change From Delusive To Real, And Make A New Blessed World Of Us By And By.

Rare Benevolence, The Minister Of God.

It Is Part Of My Creed That The Only Poetry Is History, Could We Tell It Right.

Armed Soldier, Terrible As Death, Relentless As Doom; Doing God's Judgement On The Enemies Of God. It Is A Phenomenon Not Of Joyful Nature; No, But Of Awful, To Be Looked At With Pious Terror And Awe.

If You Do Not Wish A Man To Do A Thing, You Had Better Get Him To Talk About It; For The More Men Talk, The More Likely They Are To Do Nothing Else.

Affectation Is The Product Of Falsehood.

Silence Is As Deep As Eternity, Speech A Shallow As Time.

A Man Lives By Believing Something: Not By Debating And Arguing About Many Things.

The Thing Is Not Only To Avoid Error, But To Attain Immense Masses Of Truth.

The Secret Of Business Is To Know Something That Nobody Else Knows. The Greatest Of Faults, I Should Say Is To Be Conscious Of None.

Good Christian People, Here Lies For You An Inestimable Loan; Take All Heed Thereof, In All Carefulness, Employ It: With High Recompense, Or Else With Heavy Penalty, Will It One Day Be Required Back.

The World Is A Republic Of Mediocrities, And Always Was.

Man's Earthly Interests,'are All Hooked And Buttoned Together, And Held Up, By Clothes.

The Glory Of A Workman, Still More Of A Master Workman, That He Does His Work Well, Ought To Be His Most Precious Possession; Like The Honor Of A Soldier, Dearer To Him Than Life.

No Pressure, No Diamonds.

Blessed Is He Who Has Found His Work; Let Him Ask No Other Blessedness.

Men Do Less Than They Ought, Unless They Do All They Can.

Of A Truth, Men Are Mystically United: A Mystic Bond Of Brotherhood Makes All Men One.

Brotherhood Of Man

Nothing Stops The Man Who Desires To Achieve. Every Obstacle Is Simply A Course To Develop His Achievement Muscle. It's A Strengthening Of His Powers Of Accomplishment.

In Every Object There Is Inexhaustible Meaning.

Great Is Wisdom; Infinite Is The Value Of Wisdom. It Cannot Be Exaggerated; It Is The Highest Achievement Of Man.

History Is A Great Dust Heap.

Neither Had Watt Of The Steam Engine A Heroic Origin, Any Kindred With The Princes Of This World. The Princes Of This World Were Shooting Their Partridges... While This Man With Blackened Fingers, With Grim Brow, Was Searching Out, In His Workshop, The Fire-secret.

Reality, If Rightly Interpreted, Is Grander Than Fiction.

So Here Hath Been Dawning Another Blue Day; Think, Wilt Thou Let It Slip Useless Away? Out Of Eternity This New Day Is Born, Into Eternity At Night Will Return.

The Eye Of The Intellect "sees In All Objects What It Brought With It The Means Of Seeing."

Look Around You. Your World-hosts Are All In Mutiny, In Confusion, Destitution; On The Eve Of Fiery Wreck And Madness! They Will Not March Farther For You, On The Sixpence A Day And Supply-demand Principle; They Will Not; Nor Ought They, Nor Can They. Ye Shall Reduce Them To Order, Begin Reducing Them. To Order, To Just Subordination; Noble Loyalty In Return For Noble Guidance. Their Souls Are Driven Nigh Mad; Let Yours Be Sane And Ever Saner.

The Merit Of Originality Is Not Novelty; It Is Sincerity.

No Iron Chain, Or Outward Force Of Any Kind, Can Ever Compel The Soul Of A Person To Believe Or To Disbelieve.

To A Shower Of Gold Most Things Are Penetrable.

The Merit Of Originality Is Not Novelty; It Is Sincerity. The Believing Man Is The Original Man; Whatsoever He Believes, He Believes It For Himself, Not For Another.

Trust Not The Heart Of That Man For Whom Old Clothes Are Not Venerable.

Look To Be Treated By Others As You Have Treated Others.

Silence Is More Eloquent Than Words.

Ill-health, Of Body Or Of Mind, Is Defeat. Health Alone Is Victory. Let All Men, If They Can Manage It, Contrive To Be Healthy!

A Word Spoken In Season, At The Right Moment; Is The Mother Of Ages.

Government Is Emphatically A Machine: To The Discontented A Taxing Machine, To The Contented A Machine For Securing Property.

I Don't Like To Talk Much With People Who Always Agree With Me. It Is Amusing To Coquette With An Echo For A Little While, But One Soon Tires Of It.

There Is So Much Data Available To Us, But Most Data Won't Help Us Succeed.

Love Not Pleasure; Love God.

Fancy That Thou Deservest To Be Hangedthou Wilt Feel It Happiness To Be Only Shot: Fancy That Thou Deservest To Be Hanged Ina Hair Halter, It Will Be A Luxury To Die In Hemp.

Let Time And Chance Combine, Combine! Let Time And Chance Combine! The Fairest Love From Heaven Above, That Love Of Yours Was Mine, My Dear! That Love Of Yours Was Mine.

I Know So Little About Any History. How Little Do I Know Even About The History Of Myself.

Long Stormy Spring-time, Wet Contentious April, Winter Chilling The Lap Of Very May; But At Length The Season Of Summer Does Come.

On The Whole, I Would Bid You Stand Up To Your Work, Whatever It May Be, And Not Be Afraid Of It; Not In Sorrows Or Contradictions To Yield, But To Push On Towards The Goal.

Universal History, The History Of What Man Has Accomplished In This World, Is At Bottom The History Of The Great Men Who Have Worked Here.

Love Is The Only Game That Is Not Called On Account Of Darkness.

The Modern Majesty Consists In Work. What A Man Can Do Is His Greatest Ornament, And He Always Consults His Dignity By Doing It.

The Stifled Hum Of Midnight, When Traffic Has Lain Down To Rest, And The Chariot Wheels Of Vanity, Still Rolling Here And There Through Distant Streets, Are Bearing Her To Halls Roofed In And Lighted To The Due Pitch For Her; And Only Vice And Misery, To Prowl Or To Moan Like Night Birds, Are Abroad.

For Man Is Not The Creature And Product Of Mechanism; But, In A Far Truer Sense, Its Creator And Producer.

A Very Sea Of Thought; Neither Calm Nor Clear, If You Will, Yet Wherein The Toughest Pearl-diver May Dive To His Utmost Depth, And Return Not Only With Sea-wreck But With True Orients.

Egotism Is The Source And Summary Of All Faults And Miseries.

Isolation Is The Sum Total Of Wretchedness To A Man.

Song Is The Heroics Of Speech.

A Dandy Is A Clothes-wearing Man--a Man Whose Trade, Office, And Existence Consist In The Wearing Of Clothes. Every Faculty Of His Soul, Spirit, Person And Purse Is Heroically Consecrated To This One Object--the Wearing Of Clothes, Wisely And Well; So That, As Others Dress To Live, He Lives To Dress.

All Reform Except A Moral One Will Prove Unavailing.

Laissez-faire, Supply And Demand-one Begins To Be Weary Of All That. Leave All To Egotism, To Ravenous Greed Of Money, Of Pleasure, Of Applause-it Is The Gospel Of Despair.

To Know, To Get Into The Truth Of Anything, Is Ever A Mystic Art, Of Which The Best Logic's Can But Babble On The Surface.

What A Wretched Thing Is All Fame! A Renown Of The Highest Sort Endures, Say, For Two Thousand Years. And Then? Why, Then, A Fathomless Eternity Swallows It. Work For Eternity; Not The Meagre Rhetorical Eternity Of The Periodical Critics, But For The Real Eternity Wherein Dwelleth The Divine.

Originality Is A Thing We Constantly Clamour For, And Constantly Quarrel With.

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Silence Is The Element In Which Great Things Fashion Themselves Together; That At Length They May Emerge, Full-formed And Majestic, Into The Daylight Of Life, Which They Are Thenceforth To Rule.

Battles, In These Ages, Are Transacted By Mechanism; With The Slightest Possible Development Of Human Individuality Or Spontaneity; Men Now Even Die, And Kill One Another, In An Artificial Manner.

And Man's Little Life Has Duties That Are Great, That Are Alone Great, And Go Up To Heaven And Down To Hell.

The Great Silent Man! Looking Round On The Noisy Inanity Of The World,--words With Little Meaning, Actions With Little Worth,--one Loves To Reflect On The Great Empire Of Silence.

A Man Perfects Himself By Working.

Democracy Is, By The Nature Of It, A Self-canceling Business: And Gives In The Long Run A Net Result Of Zero.

The Battle That Never Ends Is The Battle Of Belief Against Disbelief

Considering The Multitude Of Mortals That Handle The Pen In These Days, And Can Mostly Spell, And Write Without Glaring Violations Of Grammar, The Question Naturally Arises: How Is It, Then, That No Work Proceeds From Them, Bearing Any Stamp Of Authenticity And Permanence; Of Worth For More Than One Day?

A Greater Number Of God's Creatures Believe In Mahomet's Word At This Hour Than In Any Other Word Whatever. Are We To Suppose That It Was A Miserable Piece Of Spiritual Legerdemain, This Which So Many Creatures Of The Almighty Have Lived By And Died By?

A Man Lives By Believing Something.

Money Will Buy Money's Worth; But The Thing Men Call Fame, What Is It?

In The Poorest Cottage Are Books: Is One Book, Wherein For Several Thousands Of Years The Spirit Of Man Has Found Light, And Nourishment, And An Interpreting Response To Whatever Is Deepest In Him.

Skepticism Means, Not Intellectual Doubt Alone, But Moral Doubt.

A Man With A Half Volition Goes Backwards And Forwards, And Makes No Way On The Smoothest Road; A Man With A Whole Volition Advances On The Roughest, And Will Reach His Purpose, If There Be Even A Little Worthiness In It. The Man Without A Purpose Is Like A Ship Without A Rudder - A Waif, A Nothing, A No Man. Have A Purpose In Life And Having It, Throw Such Strength Of Mind And Muscle Into Your Work As God Has Given You.

We Were Wise Indeed, Could We Discern Truly The Signs Of Our Own Time; And By Knowledge Of Its Wants And Advantages, Wisely Adjust Our Own Position In It. Let Us, Instead Of Gazing Idly Into The Obscure Distance, Look Calmly Around Us, For A Little, On The Perplexed Scene Where We Stand. Perhaps, On A More Serious Inspection, Something Of Its Perplexity Will Disappear, Some Of Its Distinctive Characters And Deeper Tendencies More Clearly Reveal Themselves; Whereby Our Own Relations To It, Our Own True Aims And Endeavors In It, May Also Become Clearer.

Narrative Is Linear, But Action Has Breadth And Depth As Well As Height And Is Solid.

It Is The Feeling Of Injustice That Is Insupportable To All Men.

Endurance Is Patience Concentrated.

History Is The Distillation Of Rumour.

The Scandalous Bronze-lacquer Age Of Hungry Animalisms, Spiritual Impotences, And Mendacities, Will Have To Run Its Course, Till The Pit Follow It.

Before Philosophy Can Teach By Experience, The Philosophy Has To Be In Readiness, The Experience Must Be Gathered And Intelligibly Recorded.

Nature Alone Is Antique, And The Oldest Art A Mushroom.

A Mind That Has Seen, And Suffered, And Done, Speaks To Us Of What It Has Tried And Conquered.

But The Whim We Have Of Happiness Is Somewhat Thus. By Certain Valuations, And Averages, Of Our Own Striking, We Come Upon Some Sort Of Average Terrestrial Lot; This We Fancy Belongs To Us By Nature, And Of Indefeasible Rights. It Is Simple Payment Of Our Wages, Of Our Deserts; Requires Neither Thanks Nor Complaint. Foolish Soul! What Act Of Legislature Was There That Thou Shouldst Be Happy? A Little While Ago Thou Hadst No Right To Be At All.

He Who Talks Much About Virtue In The Abstract, Begins To Be Suspected; It Is Shrewdly Guessed That Where There Is Great Preaching There Will Be Little Almsgiving.

The Lightning Spark Of Thought Generated In The Solitary Mind Awakens Its Likeness In Another Mind.

The Whole Past Is The Procession Of The Present.

When Pococke Inquired Of Grotius, Where The Proof Was Of That Story Of The Pigeon, Trained To Pick Peas From Mahomet's (muhammad's) Ear, And Pass For An Angel Dictating To Him? Grotius Answered That There Was No Proof!

Fire Is The Best Of Servants, But What A Master!

The Graceful Minuet-dance Of Fancy Must Give Place To The Toilsome, Thorny Pilgrimage Of Understanding. On The Transition From The Age Of Romance To That Of Science.

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