Cromwell was as good as he was great, and he had never glorified Frederick, unless to write a book about a man is necessarily to glorify him.

This prevalent misconception of Carlyle's gospel, so prevalent that it deceived no less keen a critic than Lecky, was completely dissipated by Froude.

No one can read his Life intelligently without perceiving that Carlyle's real foe was materialism.

The French Revolution was to him the central fact of modern history, and at the same time a supreme judgment of Heaven upon a society given up to unrestrained licentiousness.
Whether he was right or wrong is not the point.

He was as far as possible from being, in the modern sense, a scientific historian.
Yet in some respects he was utilitarian enough.