Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.
Thomas CarlylePerfect ignorance is quiet, perfect knowledge is quiet; not so the transition from the former to the latter.
Thomas CarlyleEvery human being has a right to hear what other wise human beings have spoken to him. It is one of the Rights of Men; a very cruel injustice if you deny it to a man!
Thomas CarlyleA judicious man looks at Statistics, not to "get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted 'on him".
Thomas CarlyleWe are to remember what an umpire Nature is; what a greatness, composure of depth and tolerance there is in her. You take wheat to cast into the Earth's bosom; your wheat may be mixed with chaff, chopped straw, barn-sweepings, dust and all imaginable rubbish; no matter: you cast it into the kind just Earth; she grows the wheat, - the whole rubbish she silently absorbs, shrouds it in, says nothing of the rubbish.
Thomas Carlyle