“Every poet... finds himself born in the midst of prose. He has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.”

Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. Known as the "sage of Chelsea", he helped shape the intellectual and artistic life of the Victorian era. His writing carried wide influence in his own time, especially among readers interested in history, ideas, and culture. He is remembered for a body of work that marked him as a major public thinker of the nineteenth century.