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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.

-Thomas Carlyle

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What A Wretched Thing

Thomas Carlyle

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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.

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What Is Philosophy But A Continual Battle Against Custom?

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.

A Battle Is A Terrible Conjugation Of The Verb To Kill: I Kill, Thou Killest, He Kills, We Kill, They Kill, All Kill.

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

Superstition! That Horrid Incubus Which Dwelt In Darkness, Shunning The Light, With All Its Racks, And Poison Chalices, And Foul Sleeping Draughts, Is Passing Away Without Return. Religion Cannot Pass Away. The Burning Of A Little Straw May Hide The Stars Of The Sky; But The Stars Are There And Will Reappear.

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!

The Greatest Fault Is To Be Conscious Of None.

This We Take It Is The Grand Characteristic Of Our Age. By Our Skill In Mechanism, It Has Come To Pass, That In The Management Ofexternal Things We Excel All Other Ages; While In Whatever Respects The Pure Moral Nature, In True Dignity Of Soul And Character, We Are Perhaps Inferior To Most Civilised Ages.

Friend, Hast Thou Considered The "rugged, All-nourishing Earth," As Sophocles Well Names Her; How She Feeds The Sparrow On The Housetop, Much More Her Darling Man?

If You Will Believe Me, You Who Are Young, Yours Is The Golden Season Of Life. As You Have Heard It Called, So It Verily Is, The Seed-time Of Life; In Which, If You Do Not Sow, Or If You Sow Tares Instead Of Wheat, You Cannot Expect To Reap Well Afterwards, And You Will Arrive At Little. And In The Course Of Years When You Come To Look Back, If You Have Not Done What You Have Heard From Your Advisers,-and Among Many Counsellors There Is Wisdom,-you Will Bitterly Repent When It Is Too Late.

The Deepest Depth Of Vulgarism Is That Of Setting Up Money As The Ark Of The Covenant.

The True Past Departs Not, No Truth Or Goodness Realized By Man Ever Dies, Or Can Die; But All Is Still Here, And, Recognized Or Not, Lives And Works Through Endless Change.

Humor Has Justly Been Regarded As The Finest Perfection Of Poetic Genius.

Labor, Wide As The Earth, Has Its Summit In Heaven.

Does It Ever Give Thee Pause That Men Used To Have A Soul? Not By Hearsay Alone, Or As A Figure Of Speech, But As A Thruth That They Knew And Acted Upon. Verily It Was Another World Then, But Yet It Is A Pity We Have Lost The Tidings Of Our Souls. We Shall Have To Go In Search Of Them Again Or Worse In All Ways Shall Befall Us.

The Eye Sees What It Brings The Power To See.

The Deadliest Sin Were The Consciousness Of No Sin

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.

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

I Think Scandinavian Paganism, To Us Here, Is More Interesting Than Any Other. It Is, For One Thing, The Latest; It Continued In These Regions Of Europe Till The Eleventh Century; 800 Years Ago The Norwegians Were Still Worshipers Of Odin. It Is Interesting Also As The Creed Of Our Fathers; The Men Whose Blood Still Runs In Our Veins, Whom Doubtless We Still Resemble In So Many Ways.

Teaching School Is But Another Word For Sure And Not Very Slow Destruction.

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

Might And Right Do Differ Frightfully From Hour To Hour, But Then Centuries To Try It In, They Are Found To Be Identical.

In Books Lies The Soul Of The Whole Past Time; The Articulate Audible Voice Of The Past, When The Body And Material Substance Of It Has Altogether Vanished Like A Dream.

There Are But Two Ways Of Paying Debt: Increase Of Industry In Raising Income, Increase Of Thrift In Laying Out.

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.

For All Right Judgment Of Any Man Or Things It Is Useful, Nay, Essential, To See His Good Qualities Before Pronouncing On His Bad.

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.

Only The Person Of Worth Can Recognize The Worth In Others.

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

Hardened Round Us, Encasing Wholly Every Notion We Form Is A Wrapping Of Traditions, Hearsay's, And Mere Words.

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.

Perfect Ignorance Is Quiet, Perfect Knowledge Is Quiet; Not So The Transition From The Former To The Latter.

He Who Has No Vision Of Eternity Has No Hold On Time.

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?

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 Makes Circumstances, And Spiritually As Well As Economically, Is The Artificer Of His Own Fortune.

Habit And Imitation--there Is Nothing More Perennial In Us Than These Two. They Are The Source Of All Working, And All Apprenticeship, Of All Practice, And All Learning, In This World.

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

There Must Be A New World If There Is To Be Any World At All!... These Days Of Universal Death Must Be Days Of Universal New Birth, If The Ruin Is Not To Be Total And Final! It Is Time To Make The Dullest Man Consider; And Ask Himself, Whence He Came? Whither He Is Bound?

Of All The Things Which Man Can Do Or Make Here Below, By Far The Most Momentous, Wonderful, And Worthy Are The Things We Call Books.

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

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.

We Arc The Miracle Of Miracles, The Great Inscrutable Mystery Of God.

The Whole Past Is The Procession Of The Present.

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

The End Of Man Is Action.

A Witty Statesman Said, You Might Prove Anything By Figures.

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.

The Insignificant, The Empty, Is Usually The Loud; And After The Manner Of A Drum, Is Louder Even Because Of Its Emptiness.

Every Noble Work Is At First Impossible.

Inspirational Life

Genuine Work Alone, What Thou Workest Faithfully, That Is Eternal, As The Almighty Founder And World-builder Himself.

The Steam-engine I Call Fire-demon And Great; But It Is Nothing To The Invention Of Fire.

Foolish Men Imagine That Because Judgment For An Evil Thing Is Delayed, There Is No Justice; But Only Accident Here Below. Judgment For An Evil Thing Is Many Times Delayed Some Day Or Two, Some Century Or Two, But It Is Sure As Life, It Is Sure As Death.

In Every Object There Is Inexhaustible Meaning; The Eye Sees In It What The Eye Brings Means Of Seeing.

No Amount Of Ability Is Of The Slightest Avail Without Honor.

One Is Hardly Sensible Of Fatigue While He Marches To Music.

The Universe Is But One Vast Symbol Of God.

Tell A Person They Are Brave And You Help Them Become So.

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?

Are We Not Spirits, That Are Shaped Into A Body, Into An Appearance; And That Fade Away Again Into Air And Invisibility? Oh, Heaven, It Is Mysterious, It Is Awful To Consider That We Not Only Carry A Future Ghost Within Us; But Are, In Very Deed, Ghosts! These Limbs, Whence Had We Them; This Stormy Force; This Life-blood With Its Burning Passion? They Are Dust And Shadow; A Shadow-system Gathered Round Our Me; Wherein, Through Some Moments Or Years, The Divine Essence Is To Be Revealed In The Flesh.

Conviction Is Worthless Unless It Is Converted Into Conduct.

Unity, Agreement, Is Always Silent Or Soft-voiced; It Is Only Discord That Loudly Proclaims Itself.

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.

Speak Not At All, In Any Wise, Till You Have Somewhat To Speak; Care Not For The Reward Of Your Speaking, But Simply And With Undivided Mind For The Truth Of Your Speaking.

The English Are A Dumb People. They Can Do Great Acts, But Not Describe Them.

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!

A Man Cannot Make A Pair Of Shoes Rightly Unless He Do It In A Devout Manner.

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

Culture Is The Process By Which A Person Becomes All That They Were Created Capable Of Being.

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.

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.

We Have Chosen Mahomet Not As The Most Eminent Prophet; But As The One We Are Freest To Speak Of. He Is By No Means The Truest Of Prophets; But I Do Esteem Him A True One.

Be A Pattern To Others, And Then All Will Go Well; For As A Whole City Is Affected By The Licentious Passions And Vices Of Great Men, So It Is Likewise Reformed By Their Moderation.

We Call That Fire Of The Black Thunder-cloud "electricity," And Lecture Learnedly About It, And Grind The Like Of It Out Of Glass And Silk: But What Is It? What Made It? Whence Comes It? Whither Goes It?

Naps Are A Way Of Traveling Painlessly Through Time Into The Future.

We Are To Remember What An Umpire Nature Is; What A Greatness, Composure Of Depth And Tolerance There Is In Her. You Take Wheat To Cast Into The Earth's Bosom; Your Wheat May Be Mixed With Chaff, Chopped Straw, Barn-sweepings, Dust And All Imaginable Rubbish; No Matter: You Cast It Into The Kind Just Earth; She Grows The Wheat, - The Whole Rubbish She Silently Absorbs, Shrouds It In, Says Nothing Of The Rubbish.

After All Manner Of Professors Have Done Their Best For Us, The Place We Are To Get Knowledge Is In Books.

The Eternal Stars Shine Out Again, So Soon As It Is Dark Enough.

When We Can Drain The Ocean Into Mill-ponds, And Bottle Up The Force Of Gravity, To Be Sold By Retail, In Gas Jars; Then May We Hope To Comprehend The Infinitudes Of Man's Soul Under Formulas Of Profit And Loss; And Rule Over This Too, As Over A Patent Engine, By Checks, And Valves, And Balances.

Cease To Brag To Me Of America, And Its Model Institutions And Constitutions. America, Too, Will Have To Strain Its Energies, Crack Its Sinews, And All But Break Its Heart, As The Rest Of Us Have Had To Do, In Thousand-fold Wrestle With The Pythons, And Mud-demons, Before It Can Become A Babitation For The Gods.

It Is A Vain Hope To Make People Happy By Politics.

Nature Admits No Lie.

The Healthy Know Not Of Their Health, But Only The Sick: This Is The Physician's Aphorism, And Applicable In A Far Wider Sense Than He Gives It.

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.

O Thou Who Art Able To Write A Book, Which Once In The Two Centuries Or Oftener There Is A Man Gifted To Do, Envy Not Him Whom They Name City-builder, And Inexpressibly Pity Him Whom They Name Conqueror Or City-burner! Thou Too Art A Conqueror And Victor; But Of The True Sort, Namely Over The Devil: Thou Too Hast Built What Will Outlast All Marble And Metal, And Be A Wonder-bringing City Of The Mind, A Temple And Seminary And Prophetic Mount, Whereto All Kindreds Of The Earth Will Pilgrim.

Not Our Logical, Mensurative Faculty, But Our Imaginative One Is King Over Us; I Might Say, Priest And Prophet To Lead Us Heavenward; Or Magician And Wizard To Lead Us Hellward.

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.

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.

Speech Is Silver, Silence Is Golden.

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.

There Are Female Dandies As Well As Clothes-wearing Men; And The Former Are As Objectionable As The Latter.

Thought Once Awakened Does Not Again Slumber; Unfolds Itself Into A System Of Thought; Grows, In Man After Man, Generation After Generation, - Till Its Full Stature Is Reached, And Such System Of Thought Can Grow No Farther, But Must Give Place To Another.

Talk That Does Not End In Any Kind Of Action Is Better Suppressed Altogether.

Imagination Is A Poor Matter When It Has To Part Company With Understanding.

Success In Life, In Anything, Depends Upon The Number Of Persons That One Can Make Himself Agreeable To.

Success In Life

He That Works And Does Some Poem, Not He That Merely Says One, Is Worthy Of The Name Of Poet.

The Archenemy Is The Arch Stupid!

All That A University Or Final Highest School. Can Do For Us Is Still But What The First School Began Doing--teach Us To Read. We Learn To Read In Various Languages, In Various Sciences; We Learn The Alphabet And Letters Of All Manner Of Books. But The Place Where We Are To Get Knowledge, Even Theoretic Knowledge, Is The Books Themselves. It Depends On What We Read, After All Manner Of Professors Have Done Their Best For Us. The True University Of These Days Is A Collection Of Books.

Freedom Is The One Purport, Wisely Aimed At, Or Unwisely, Of All Man's Struggles, Toilings And Sufferings, In This Earth.

What This Country Needs Is A Man Who Knows God Other Than By Heresay.

To A Shower Of Gold Most Things Are Penetrable.

Whatsoever Thy Hand Findeth To Do, Do That With All Thy Might And Leave The Issues Calmly To God.

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

History: A Distillation Of Rumor.

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.

Variety Is The Condition Of Harmony.

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.

Imperfection Clings To A Person, And If They Wait Till They Are Brushed Off Entirely, They Would Spin For Ever On Their Axis, Advancing Nowhere.

Not Brute Force But Only Persuasion And Faith Are The Kings Of This World.

Men's Hearts Ought Not To Be Set Against One Another, But Set With One Another And All Against Evil Only.

Biography Is The Only True History.

Feel It In Thy Heart And Then Say Whether It Is Of God!

All Destruction, By Violent Revolution Or However It Be, Is But New Creation On A Wider Scale.

What Are Your Axioms, And Categories, And Systems, And Aphorisms? Words, Words.... Be Not The Slave Of Words.

Conviction Never So Excellent, Is Worthless Until It Coverts Itself Into Conduct.

Virtue Is Like Health: The Harmony Of The Whole Man.

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.

Wondrous Is The Strength Of Cheerfulness, And Its Power Of Endurance - The Cheerful Man Will Do More In The Same Time, Will Do It; Better, Will Preserve It Longer, Than The Sad Or Sullen.

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

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

We Have Not The Love Of Greatness, But The Love Of The Love Of Greatness.

Genius Is An Infinite Capacity For Taking Pains.

Generations Are As The Days Of Toilsome Mankind; Death And Birth Are The Vesper And The Matin Bells That Summon Mankind To Sleep And To Rise Refreshed For New Advancement. What The Father Has Made, The Son Can Make And Enjoy; But Has Also Work Of His Own Appointed Him. Thus All Things Wax And Roll Onwards: Arts, Establishments, Opinions, Nothing Is Ever Completed, But Ever Completing.

Science Has Done Much For Us; But It Is A Poor Science That Would Hide From Us The Great Deep Sacred Infinitude Of Nescience, On Which All Science Swims As A Mere Superficial Film.

If Time Is Precious, No Book That Will Not Improve By Repeated Readings Deserves To Be Read At All.

Doubt, Of Whatever Kind, Can Be Ended By Action Alone.

He That Has Done Nothing Has Known Nothing.

History Is Philosophy Teaching By Experience.

History Is A Mighty Dramos, Enacted Upon The Theatre Of Times, With Suns For Lamps And Eternity For A Background.

Authors Are The Vanguard In The March Of Mind, The Intellectual Backwoodsmen, Reclaiming From The Idle Wilderness New Territories For The Thought And Activity Of Their Happier Brethren.

To The Vulgar Eye, Few Things Are Wonderful That Are Not Distant

The Situation That Has Not Its Duty, Its Ideal, Was Never Yet Occupied By Man. Yes, Here, In This Poor, Miserable, Hampered, Despicable Actual, Wherein Thou Even Now Standest, Here Or Nowhere Is Thy Ideal; Work It Out Therefrom, And, Working, Believe, Live, Be Free. Fool! The Ideal Is In Thyself.

Wealth Of A Man Is The Number Of Things Which He Loves And Blesses Which He Is Loved And Blessed By.

He That Has A Secret Should Not Only Hide It, But Hide That He Has It To Hide.

The World Is A Thing That A Man Must Learn To Despise, And Even To Neglect, Before He Can Learn To Reverence It, And Work In It And For It.

Popular Opinion Is The Greatest Lie In The World.

Men Are To Be Guided Only By Their Self-interests. Good Government Is A Good Balancing Of These; And, Except A Keen Eye And Appetite For Self-interest, Requires No Virtue In Any Quarter. To Both Parties It Is Emphatically A Machine: To The Discontented, A Taxing-machine; To The Contented, A Machine For Securing Property. Its Duties And Its Faults Are Not Those Of A Father, But Of An Active Parish-constable.

If A Book Comes From The Heart, It Will Contrive To Reach Other Hearts; All Art And Author-craft Are Of Small Amount To That.

We Remove Mountains, And Make Seas Our Smooth Highway; Nothing Can Resist Us. We War With Rude Nature; And, By Our Resistless Engines, Come Off Always Victorious, And Loaded With Spoils.

Literature Is The Thought Of Thinking Souls.

A Stammering Man Is Never A Worthless One. Physiology Can Tell You Why. It Is An Excess Of Sensibility To The Presence Of His Fellow Creature, That Makes Him Stammer.

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

Neither In Tailoring Nor In Legislating Does Man Proceed By Mere Accident.

Stern Accuracy In Inquiring, Bold Imagination In Describing, These Are The Cogs On Which History Soars Or Flutters And Wobbles.

Music... A Kind Of Inarticulate, Unfathomable Speech, Which Leads To The Edge Of The Infinite.

All Work Is As Seed Sown; It Grows And Spreads, And Sows Itself Anew.

In A Symbol There Is Concealment And Yet Revelation: Here Therefore, By Silence And By Speech Acting Together, Comes A Double Significance.

Man Is Emphatically A Proselytizing Creature.

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.

This World, After All Our Science And Sciences, Is Still A Miracle; Wonderful, Inscrutable, Magical And More, To Whosoever Will Think Of It.

Magic In The World

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.

Laughter Means Sympathy.

Man, It Is Not Thy Works, Which Are Mortal, Infinitely Little, And The Greatest No Greater Than The Least, But Only The Spirit Thou Workest In, That Can Have Worth Or Continuance.

The Highest Being Reveals Himself In Man.

The Nobleness Of Silence. The Highest Melody Dwells Only In Silence,--the Sphere Melody, The Melody Of Health.

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

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.

Even In The Meanest Sorts Of Labor, The Whole Soul Of A Man Is Composed Into A Kind Of Real Harmony The Instant He Sets Himself To Work.

Labor Is Life: From The Inmost Heart Of The Worker Rises His God-given Force, The Sacred Celestial Life-essence Breathed Into Him By Almighty God!

Custom Doth Make Dotards Of Us All.

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

He Who Could Foresee Affairs Three Days In Advance Would Be Rich For Thousands Of Years.

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?

They Only Are Wise Who Know That They Know Nothing.

It Is Not Honest Inquiry That Makes Anarchy; But It Is Error, Insincerity, Half Belief And Untruth That Make It.

Rest Is For The Dead.

With Stupidity And Sound Digestion, Man May Front Much.

With Union Grounded On Falsehood And Ordering Us To Speak And Act Lies, We Will Not Have Anything To Do. Peace? A Brutal Lethargy Is Peaceable; The Noisome Is Peaceable. We Hope For A Living Peace, Not A Dead One!

The Bible Is The Truest Utterance That Ever Came By Alphabetic Letters From The Soul Of Man, Through Which, As Through A Window Divinely Opened, All Men Can Look Into The Stillness Of Eternity, And Discern In Glimpses Their Far-distant, Long-forgotten Home.

The End Of Man Is An Action, And Not A Thought, Though It Were The Noblest?

Be Not A Slave Of Words.

No Man At Bottom Means Injustice; It Is Always For Some Obscure Distorted Image Of A Right That He Contends: An Obscure Image Diffracted, Exaggerated, In The Wonderfulest Way By Natural Dimness And Selfishness; Getting Tenfold More Diffracted By Exasperation Of Contest, Till At Length It Become All But Irrecognis-able.

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.

Over The Times Thou Hast No Power. . . . Solely Over One Man Thou Hast Quite Absolute Power. Him Redeem And Make Honest.

Man Is, And Was Always, A Block-head And Dullard; Much Readier To Feel And Digest, Than To Think And Consider.

"love Is Not Altogether A Delirium," Says He Elsewhere; "yet Has It Many Points In Common Therewith."

Delirium Tremens

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.

Every Poet, Be His Outward Lot What It May, Finds Himself Born In The Midst Of Prose; H E Has To Struggle From The Littleness And Obstruction Of An Actual World Into The Freedom And Infinitude Of An Ideal.

The Condition Of The Most Passionate Enthusiast Is To Be Preferred Over The Individual Who, Because Of The Fear Of Making A Mistake, Won't In The End Affirm Or Deny Anything

My Books Are Friends That Never Fail Me.

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.

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

There Are Remedies For All Things But Death.

Caution Is The Lower Story Of Prudence.

At Worst, Is Not This An Unjust World, Full Of Nothing But Beasts Of Prey, Four-footed Or Two-footed?

All Men, If They Work Not As In The Great Taskmaster's Eye, Will Work Wrong, And Work Unhappily For Themselves And For You.

Properly Speaking, All True Work Is Religion.

Love Is Ever The Beginning Of Knowledge As Fire Is Of Light.

For Suffering And Enduring There Is No Remedy, But Striving And Doing.

Pain And Suffering

Stop A Moment, Cease Your Work, And Look Around You.

All Human Souls, Never So Bedarkened, Love Light; Light Once Kindled Spreads Till All Is Luminous.

Endurance Is Patience Concentrated.

O Thou Who Art Able To Write A Book Which Once In The Two Centuries Or Oftener There Is A Man Gifted To Do, Envy Not Him Whom They Name City-builder, And Inexpressibly Pity Him Whom They Name Conqueror Or City-burner.

If A Man Was Great While Living, He Becomes Tenfold Greater When Dead.

No Violent Extreme Endures.

The True University Of These Days Is A Collection Of Books.

The Persians Are Called The French Of The East; We Will Call The Arabs Oriental Italians. A Gifted Noble People; A People Of Wildstrong Feelings, And Of Iron Restraint Over These: The Characteristic Of Noblemindedness, Of Genius.

Not What I Have, But What I Do Is My Kingdom.

For Every One Hundred Men Who Can Stand Adversity There Is Only One Who Can Withstand Prosperity.

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