The essence of humor is sensibility; warm, tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.

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.]

Heroes, it would seem, exist always and a certain worship of them.

The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.

Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.

It is a fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso is acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate acquaintance with.