Every 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 Carlyle
Silence is as deep as eternity; speech, shallow as time. – Thomas Carlyle
Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles. – Thomas Carlyle
Books of quotation are not only of importance to the reader for what they contain of matured thought, but also for what they suggest. Our brains receive the spark and become luminous, like inflammable material by the contact of flint and steel. – Maturin M. Ballou, January 1886, preface to Edge-Tools of Speech