Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles. – Thomas Carlyle
If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt. – Thomas Carlyle
Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against. – Thomas Carlyle
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. – Thomas Carlyle
History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription molders from the tablet: the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? – Washington Irving, The Sketch Book: Westminster Abbey
One of the deepest impulses in man is the impulse to record, – to scratch a drawing on a tusk or keep a diary, to collect sagas and heap cairns. This instinct as to the enduring value of the past is, one might say, the very basis of civilization. – John Jay Chapman, Memories and Milestones
President Obama clearly cannot run on his record. All hes offering is more of the same. Thats not good. Look at the economy. Its stagnating. And so, what theyre now going to try and do is bring this campaign down to little things, distractions, distortions, smear, fear, anger, frustration. – Paul Ryan