All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been; it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. - Thomas Carlyle

I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.

Every poet... finds himself born in the midst of prose. He has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.

There are depths in man which go down the length of the lowest Hell, as there are heights which reach the highest Heaven; — for are not both Heaven and Hell made out of him, everlasting Miracle and Mystery that he is?