It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.

Beside some philosophers of larger vision, Carlyle stands like an honest, half-despairing boy, grasping at some details only of their world systems.

The life in us is like the water in the river. It may rise this year higher than man has ever known it, and flood the parched uplands; even this may be the eventful year, which will drown out all our muskrats. It was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks where the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its freshets.

The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.

One may be drunk with love without being any nearer to finding his mate.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect. [So why not suspect good rather than bad in events, people and life and thereby find it more?]

When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable.