Thomas Carlyle

“Every noble work is at first impossible.”

“The block of granite, which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.”

“All work of man is as the swimmer's: a vast ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word.”

“If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of him.”

“His religion at best is an anxious wish, - like that of Rebelais, a great Perhaps.”

“Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path ... a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do ... to find this path, and wa...”

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

“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness, than disbelief in great men.”

“Silence is deep as Eternity; speech, shallow as Time.”

“Silence is more eloquent than words.”

“Every noble crown is, and on earth will ever be, a crown of thorns.”

“Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man, but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.”

“All work is seed sown. It grows and spreads, and sows itself anew.”

“Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind.”

“He that can work is a born king of something.”

“If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.”

“Every poet... finds himself born in the midst of prose. He has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.”

“If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.”

“The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only.”

“Ye are most strong, ye Sons of the icy North, of the far East, far marching from your rugged Eastern Wildernesses, hither-ward from the gray Dawn of Time! Ye are Sons of the Jotun-land; the...”