"A positive engagement to marry a certain person at a certain time, at all haps and hazards, I have always considered the most ridiculous thing on earth."

Jane Welsh Carlyle See all quotes by Jane Welsh Carlyle →

React to this quote

More by Jane Welsh Carlyle

“The triumphal-procession-air which, in our manners and customs, is given to marriage at the outset — that singing of Te Deum before the battle has begun.”

“Oh Lord! If you but knew what a brimstone of a creature I am behind all this beautiful amiability!”

“Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle”

“The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope.”

“If they had said that the sun or the moon had gone out of the heavens, it could not have struck me with the idea of a more awful and dreary blank in creation than the words: "Byron is dead!”

“When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favour.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Knowledge is a potential for a certain type of action, by which we mean that the action would occur if certain tests were run. For example, a library plus its user has knowledge if a certain type of r…"

— C. West Churchman

Philosophy1913–2004

#knowledge

"I’ve always enjoyed feeling a connection to the avant-garde, such as Dada and surrealism and pop art. The only thing the artist can do is be honest with themselves and make the art they want to make. …"

— Jeff Koons

Art1955

#truth

"No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that ev…"

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosophy1788–1860

#change

"Your life is hard to change. But at the same time, I've also always felt that I'm the same person now as I was at five, so I've been sort of reaching out to that too, in a way."

— Kim Gordon

Music1953

#life