“Great men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain which it is good and pleasant to be near, - the light which enlightens, which has enlightened, the darkness of the world, - in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them. . . . No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man’s life. Religion I find stands upon it; not Paganism only, but far higher and truer religions, - all religions hitherto known. Hero-worship, heart-felt, prostrate admiration, submission – burning, boundless, for a noblest Godlike form of man, - is not that the germ of Christianity itself? The greatest of all heroes is One whom we do not name here. . . . No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.”
CARLYLE
“A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way, not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping.”
GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]
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