I called it a small light shining and shaping in the huge vortex of Norse darkness. Yet the darkness itself was alive; consider that. It was the eage… - Thomas Carlyle

Does it ever give thee pause, that men used to have a soul- not by hearsay along, or as a figure of speech; but as a truth that they knew, and acted upon! Verily it was another world then... but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls... we shall have to go in search of them again, or worse in all ways shall befall us.

A man's honest, earnest opinion is the most precious of all he possesses: let him communicate this, if he is to communicate anything. There is, doubtless a time to speak, and a time to keep silence; yet Fontenelle's celebrated aphorism, I might have my hand full of truth, and would open only my little finger, may be practiced to excess, and the little finger itself kept closed. That reserve, and knowing silence, long so universal among us, is less the fruit of active benevolence, of philosophic tolerance, than of indifference and weak conviction. Honest Scepticism, honest Atheism, is better than that withered lifeless Dilettantism and amateur Eclecticism, which merely toys with all opinions; or than that wicked Machiavelism, which in thought denying every thing, except that Power is Power, in words, for its own wise purposes, loudly believes every thing: of both which miserable habitudes the day, even in England, is wellnigh over.

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.