Quotes from Edward Carpenter

Whatever the practical value of the Walden experiment may be, there is no question that the book is one of the most vital and pithy ever written.

Great success in examinations does naturally not as a rule go with originality of thought.

I should like these few words to be read over the grave when my body is placed in the earth; for though it is possible I may be present and conscious of what is going on, I shall not be able to communicate.

Where there had been only jeers or taunts at first, crowds come to listen with serious and sympathetic men.

I was in the Square at the time. The crowd was a most good-humoured, easy going, smiling crowd; but presently it was transformed. A regiment of mounted police came cantering up.

What is the good of life if its chief element, and that which must always be its chief element, is odious? No, the only true economy is to arrange so that your daily labor shall be itself a joy.

I might have simply settled down into an armchair literary life. I really don't know exactly why I didn't.

With my somewhat vague aspiring mind, to be imprisoned in the rude details of a most material life was often irksome.

IN April 1882 my father died and I was at once whirled out of my land of dreams into a very different sphere.

It is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian tendencies, I should have gone to Trinity Hall - which was, and is, before all a Law College - and should thus have been thrown into close touch with the legal element in life.

Anyone who realises what Love is, the dedication of the heart, so profound, so absorbing, so mysterious, so imperative, and always just in the noblest natures so strong, cannot fail to see how difficult, how tragic even, must often be the fate of those whose deepest feelings are destined from the earliest days to be a riddle and a stumbling-block, unexplained to themselves, passed over in silence by others.

It would seem probable that the attachment of such a one is of a tender and profound character; indeed, it is possible that in this class of men we have the love sentiment in one of its most perfect forms—a form in which from the necessities of the situation the sensuous element, though present, is exquisitely subordinated to the spiritual.

Anyhow, with their extraordinary gift for, and experience in, affairs of the heart from the double point of view, both of the man and of the woman it is not difficult to see that these people have a special work to do as reconcilers and interpreters of the two sexes to each other.

To some perhaps it may appear a little strained to place this last-mentioned form of attachment on a level of importance with the others, and such persons may be inclined to deny to the homogenic [...] or homosexual love that intense, that penetrating, and at times overmastering character which would entitle it to rank as a great human passion. But in truth this view, when entertained, arises from a want of acquaintance with the actual facts.

For any sustained and more or less original work it seems most necessary that one should have the quietude and strength of Nature at hand, like a great reservoir from which to draw. The open air, and the physical and mental health that goes with it, the sense of space and freedom of the Sky, the vitality and amplitude of the Earth -- these are real things from which one can only cut oneself off at serious peril and risk to one's immortal soul.

But SACRIFICE does not mean 'death' at all. It means MAKING HOLY

So that eternal love, in love's fresh case, Weighs not the dust and injury of age;

Homosexual,' generally used in scientific works is of course a bastard word. 'Homogenic' has been suggested, as being from two roots, both Greek, i.e., 'homos,' same, and 'genos,' sex.

It is not my object here to sketch the future of marriage and sex-relations generally—a subject which is now being dealt with very effectively from many sides; but only to insist on our using our good sense in the whole matter, and refusing any longer to be bound by senseless pre-judgments.

For so, surely you will cast a light of gladness upon his onward journey, and contribute your part towards the building of that kingdom of love which links our earth to heaven.

Do not think too much of the dead husk of your friend, or mourn too much over it, but send your thoughts out towards the real soul or self which has escaped - to reach it.

We lived within two hundred yards of the sea, and its voice was in our ears night and day.

It is curious that, with my somewhat antinomian tendencies, I should have gone to Trinity Hall - which was, and is, before all a Law College - and should thus have been thrown into close touch with the legal element in life.

Early in 1888 one or two of us got together to establish our own Sheffield Socialist Society.