Thomas Carlyle
Scottish essayist, philosopher, and historian
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Language is called the Garment of Thought: however, it should rather be, Language is the Flesh-Garment, the Body, of Thought. I said that Imagination wove this Flesh-Garment; and does not she? Metaphors are her stuff: examine Language; what, if you except some few primitive elements (of natural sound), what is it all but Metaphors, recognized as such, or no longer recognized; still fluid and florid, or now solid-grown and colorless? If those same primitive elements are the osseous fixtures in the Flesh-Garment, Language, — then are Metaphors its muscles and tissues and living integuments.
—Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist, philosopher, and historian, Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh, 1831
Posted on October 6, 1999 at 9:11 PM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.
—Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus
Posted on April 14, 2003 at 9:47 AM
WORDS ABOUT WORDS
The illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide, on which we and all the universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, for we have no word to speak about it.
—Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist, philosopher, and historian, On Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1840
Posted on January 30, 2001 at 10:58 PM
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