Able Quote by Thomas Carlyle

Not that which men do worthily, but that which they do successfully, is what history makes haste to record.

— Henry Ward Beecher

The record of one's life must needs prove more interesting to him who writes it than to him who reads what has been written.

— Elizabeth Kenny

In the old times, women did not get their lives written, though I don't doubt many of them were much better worth writing than…

— Harriet Beecher Stowe

Few men would dare to read their own autobiography if all their deeds were recorded in it; few can look back upon their entire…

— Charles Spurgeon

As it often happens that the best men are but little known, and consequently cannot extend the usefulness of their examples a great way,…

— Henry Fielding

Who knows whether the best of men be known? or whether there be not more remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in…

— Thomas Browne

The great lesson of biography is to show what man can be and do at his best. A noble life put fairly on record…

— Samuel Smiles

It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing…

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

— Thomas Carlyle

Though just biographical record will touch the failings of the good and the eminent with tenderness.

— Anna Seward

I have labored to make the record of the great men of my time.

— Gutzon Borglum

People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.

— Samuel Johnson