Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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Force, force, everywhere force; we ourselves a mysterious force in the centre of that. "There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it: how else could it rot?" As used in his time, by the word force, Carlyle means energy.
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Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.
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O Time! Time! how it brings forth and devours! And the roaring flood of existence rushes on forever similar, forever changing!
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Endurance is patience concentrated.
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Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.
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Habit is the deepest law of human nature.
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Laws themselves, political Constitutions, are not our Life; but only the house wherein our Life is led.
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When Pococke inquired of Grotius, where the proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's (Muhammad's) ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there was no proof!
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It is a fact which escapes no one, that, generally speaking, whoso is acquainted with his worth has but a little stock to cultivate acquaintance with.
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Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.
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This we take it is the grand characteristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, it has come to pass, that in the management ofexternal things we excel all other ages; while in whatever respects the pure moral nature, in true dignity of soul and character, we are perhaps inferior to most civilised ages.
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We have not the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness.
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History is a great dust heap.
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Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.
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Cherish what is dearest while you have it near you, and wait not till it is far away. Blind and deaf that we are; oh, think, if thou yet love anybody living, wait not till death sweep down the paltry little dust clouds and dissonances of the moment, and all be made at last so mournfully clear and beautiful, when it is too late.
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The crash of the whole solar and stellar systems could only kill you once.
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Nature is the time-vesture of God that reveals Him to the wise, and hides him from the foolish.
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If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it that he himself is aware of.
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Every poet, be his outward lot what it may, finds himself born in the midst of prose; h e has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.
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The first purpose of clothes... was not warmth or decency, but ornament.... Among wild people, we find tattooing and painting even prior to clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man is decoration; as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilized countries.
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Misery which, through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own helper and speak for itself.
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The modern majesty consists in work. What a man can do is his greatest ornament, and he always consults his dignity by doing it.
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We arc the miracle of miracles, the great inscrutable mystery of God.
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A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the greatest man.