Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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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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O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this for a truth: the thing thou seekest is already here, "here or nowhere," couldst thou only see.
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Of all the things which man can do or make here below, by far the most momentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books.
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What are your historical Facts still more your biographical Wilt thou know a man by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts.
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What the light of your mind, which is the direct inspiration of the Almighty, pronounces incredible, that, in God's name, leave uncredited. At your peril do not try believing that!
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Show me the man you honor; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be.
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If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.
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A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.
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It's a man's sincerity and depth of vision that makes him a poet.
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The eye sees what it brings the power to see.
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A man's religion consists, not of the many things he is in doubt of and tries to believe, but of the few he is assured of and has no need of effort for believing.
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True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
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Naps are a way of traveling painlessly through time into the future.
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What is philosophy but a continual battle against custom?
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There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems.
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Consider in fact, a body of six hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous persons, set to consult about "business," with twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, assiduously listening to them, and checking and criticising them. Was there ever, since the world began, will there ever be till the world end, any "business" accomplished in these circumstances?
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If a man was great while living, he becomes tenfold greater when dead.
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History: A distillation of rumor.
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We have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent Prophet; but as the one we are freest to speak of. He is by no means the truest of Prophets; but I do esteem him a true one.
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Every noble work is at first impossible.
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Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were nourished and grown . . . Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of men.
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Great men are the inspired texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named History.
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Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.
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Why did not somebody teach me the constellations, and make me at home in the starry heavens, which are always overhead, and which I don't half know to this day?