Thomas Carlyle

Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

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

Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

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.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

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

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.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.

The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.