In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time: the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream. – Thomas Carlyle
All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls! – Thomas Carlyle
No conquest can ever become permanent which does not show itself beneficial to the conquered as well as to the conquerors. – Thomas Carlyle
Catalogues of imaginary libraries are an obscure but fruitful area of collecting. The tradition of imaginary books, which exist only within other books, goes back at least to Rabelais, who invented a list of book titles for the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Gargantua and Pantagruel (c.1532). – Emi Hastings, “Catalogues of Imaginary Libraries,” 2014