“A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading.”
1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)
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Thomas Carlyle 481
Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian… 1795–1881Related quotes

La critique souvent n'est pas une science; c'est un métier, où il faut plus de santé que d'esprit, plus de travail que de capacité, plus d'habitude que de génie. Si elle vient d'un homme qui ait moins de discernement que de lecture, et qu'elle s'exerce sur de certains chapitres, elle corrompt et les lecteurs et l'écrivain.
Aphorism 63
Les Caractères (1688), Des Ouvrages de l'Esprit

Space (1912)
Context: Remember his mind and no other part of him lived in his new world. He said it gave him an odd sense of detachment to sit in a room among people, and to know that nothing there but himself had any relation at all to the infinite strange world of Space that flowed around them. He would listen, he said, to a great man talking, with one eye on the cat on the rug, thinking to himself how much more the cat knew than the man.

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 226

“No man should be a perfect physician to any but himself.”
Discourses on the Sober Life

“I found that it is much more pleasurable to read adventures than to live them.”
Source: The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977), Chapter 23 (p. 210)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 127.