Painful for a person is rebellious independence, only in loving companionship with his associates does a person feel safe: Only in reverently bowing down before the higher does a person feel exalted.

Force, force, everywhere force; we ourselves a mysterious force in the centre of that. "There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it: how else could it rot?" [As used in his time, by the word force, Carlyle means energy.]

Democracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

Pain was not given thee merely to be miserable under; learn from it, turn it to account.

Earnestness alone makes life eternity.

Dinners are defined as 'the ultimate act of communion;' men that can have communion in nothing else, can sympathetically eat together, can still rise into some glow of brotherhood over food and wine.