Thomas Carlyle

The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that!

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die; but is all still here, and, recognized or not, lives and works through endless changes.

Of all paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path for every man; to find this path, and to walk in it, is the one thing needful for him.

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

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

No man sees far, the most see no farther than their noses.

A man's perfection is his work.

A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.