Meaning of “One man cannot tell another man where the…”

Sartor Resartus, Book II, Chapter IX, “The Everlasting Yea,” printed page 156 / Wikisource scan leaf 188 in The Works of Thomas Carlyle, Centenary Edition, Vol. I (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896). “The Ideal is in thyself” occurs in the same spiritual-enfranchisement passage, where Teufelsdröckh argues that the present “Actual” supplies the material to shape an inward Ideal. This collection retains that fictional, metaphysical and explicitly religious frame rather than converting it into modern clinical or self-esteem doctrine.

Villette; excerpt from Lucy Snowe’s reflection on how to advance toward a more independent position. This is fictional first-person narration, and the excerpt is not presented as Brontë speaking autobiographically.

Bartleby, the Scrivener, Project Gutenberg #11231. Bartleby speaks this line when the lawyer asks him to help examine copied documents; it is fictional character dialogue, not a general prescription to refuse work or obligations.

Self-Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, “The Kingship of Self-Control.” Project Gutenberg #51469. The line belongs to late-nineteenth-century self-mastery literature and is not evidence that circumstance is irrelevant.

The Woman’s Bible, Stanton commentary; the line appears in her critique of idealizing women’s self-sacrifice and is preserved in the Project Gutenberg text.

The Joyful Wisdom, aphorism 270; Thomas Common translation. The formula has a longer classical and Nietzschean history, so this record is tied specifically to this occurrence.