Nature requires no man to make proclamation of his doings and hat-makings; Nature forbids all men to make such.
 Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (1843). copy citation

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Author Thomas Carlyle
Source Past and Present
Topic hat forbidding
Date 1843
Language English
Reference
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Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13534/pg13534-images.html

Context

“true proclamation if that will do; if that will not do, then false proclamation,—to such extent of falsity as will serve your purpose; as will not seem too false to be credible!—I answer, once for all, that the fact is not so. Nature requires no man to make proclamation of his doings and hat-makings; Nature forbids all men to make such. There is not a man or hat-maker born into the world but feels, at first, that he is degrading himself if he speak of his excellencies and prowesses, and supremacy in his craft: his inmost heart says to him, "Leave thy friends to speak of these;” source