The first purpose of clothes... was not warmth or decency, but ornament.... Among wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration; as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries.
Thomas CarlyleI should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.
Thomas CarlyleA man ought to inquire and find out what he really and truly has an appetite for; what suits his constitution; and that, doctors tell him, is the very thing he ought to have in general. And so with books.
Thomas CarlyleSarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.
Thomas Carlyle