There is no uniform of excellence, either in physical or spiritual nature: all genuine things are what they ought to be. The reindeer is good and beautiful, and so likewise is the elephant. In literature it is the same.

Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Jean Paul Friedrich Richter,” Edinburgh Review No. 91, Art. 7 (1827-06)
    (Source)

A review of Heinrich Döring, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of His Works (1826).