Thomas Carlyle
Quotations

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

- Heroes and Hero Worship

 

"After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one. "

- Past and Present

 

"He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem."

- Life of Schiller

 

"How does the poet speak to men with power, but by being still more a man than they?"

- Burns. Edinburgh Review, 1828.

 

" There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed."

- Sir Walter Scott. London and Westminster Review, 1838.

 

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels."

- Essays. The Opera.

 

"The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die."

- Latter Day Pamphlet, No. 8.

 

"The true University of these days is a Collection of Books."

- Heroes and Hero-Worship. The Hero as a Man of Letters.