"Or indeed we may say again, it is in what I called Portrait-painting, delineating of men and things, especially of men, that Shakspeare is great. All the greatness of the man comes out decisively here. It is unexampled, I think, that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thing he looks at reveals not this or that face of it, but its inmost heart and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light before him, so that he discerns the perfect structure of it. Creative, we said: poetic creation, what is this too but seeing the thing sufficiently? The word that will describe the thing, follows of itself from such clear intense sight of the thing. And is not Shakspeare's morality, his valour, candour, tolerance, truthfulness; his whole victorious strength and greatness, which can triumph over such obstructions, visible there too? Great as the world!"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
ExistentialistsAcademics from ScotlandPhilosophers from ScotlandConservatives from the United KingdomHistorians from Scotland
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Carlyle
1795 – 1881
schottischer Essayist und Historiker
489 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Carlyle →
Related Quotes
"Niech się najbardziej wysmuknie sowa, przecie nie dojdzie sokoła."
"Debajo del sayal hay mal."
"Debaixo de bom saio está o homem mau."
"L'uomo si giudica mal alla cerca."
"Ga niet op het uiterlijk af."
"Ett gott skratt förlänger livet."
"As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden— "Speech is silvern, Silence is golden"; or…"
""Do the Duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a Duty! Thy second Duty will already have become clea…"
"For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like?"
"O thou who art able to write a Book, which once in the two centuries or oftener there is a man gifted to do, envy not…"