Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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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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I never heard tell of any clever man that came of entirely stupid people.
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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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Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.
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History is philosophy teaching by experience.
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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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We observe with confidence that the truly strong mind, view it as intellect or morality, or under any other aspect, is nowise the mind acquainted with its strength; that here the sign of health is unconsciousness.
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The Ideal is in thyself, the impediments too is in thyself.
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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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No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!
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Friend, hast thou considered the "rugged, all-nourishing earth," as Sophocles well names her; how she feeds the sparrow on the housetop, much more her darling man?
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There is no permanent place in this universe for evil... Evil may hide behind this fallacy and that, but it will be hunted from fallacy to fallacy until there is no more fallacy for it to hide behind.
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The mystery of a person, indeed, is ever divine to him that has a sense for the godlike.
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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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It is great, and there is no other greatness-to make one nook of God's Creation more fruitful, better, more worthy of God; to make some human heart a little wiser, manlier, happier-more blessed.
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A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards, but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads.
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In no time whatever can small critics entirely eradicate out of living men's hearts a certain altogether peculiar collar reverence for Great Men--genuine admiration, loyalty, adora-tion.
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Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars!
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With union grounded on falsehood and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have anything to do. Peace? A brutal lethargy is peaceable; the noisome is peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one!
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Let me have my own way in exactly everything and a sunnier and pleasanter creature does not exist.
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The greatest security against sin is to be shocked at its presence.
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A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth.
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The philosopher is he to whom the highest has descended, and the lowest has mounted up; who is the equal and kindly brother of all.
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The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.