"All great Peoples are conservative . . . ", Thomas Carlyle

 

Here is a quotation from Thomas Carlyle's Past and Present (1843): 

All great Peoples are conservative; slow to believe in novelties; patient of much error in actualities; deeply and forever certain of the greatness that is in Law, in Custom once solemnly-established, and now long recognized as just and final.--True, O Radical Reformers, there is no custom that can, properly speaking, be final; none. And yet thou seest Customs which, in all civilised countries, are accounted final; nay, under the Old-Roman name of Mores, are accounted Morality, Virtue, Laws of God Himself.

"Fortuna" by Thomas Carlyle

 

The wind blows east, the wind blows west,

And the frost falls and the rain:

A weary heart went thankful to rest,

And must rise to toil again, ’gain,

And must rise to toil again.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west,

And there comes good luck and bad;

The thriftiest man is the cheerfulest;

’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad,

’Tis a thriftless thing to be sad.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;

Ye shall know a tree by its fruit:

This world, they say, is worst to the best;—

But a dastard has evil to boot, boot,

But a dastard has evil to boot.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;

What skills it to mourn or to talk?

A journey I have, and far ere I rest;

I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk,

I must bundle my wallets and walk.

The wind does blow as it lists alway;

Canst thou change this world to thy mind?

The world will wander its own wise way;

I also will wander mine, mine,

I also will wander mine.

Thomas Carlyle (4 December 1795 – 5 February 1881)