Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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The world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the common copper.
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All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.
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Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.
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If Hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero?
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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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The infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.
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Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lies nearest to thee," which thou know to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
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A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.
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Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there and will reappear.
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We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highway; nothing can resist us. We war with rude Nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils.
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The greatest mistake is to imagine that we never err.
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The true Church of England, at this moment, lies in the Editors of the newspapers.
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The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.
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Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.
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The suffering man ought really to consume his own smoke; there is no good in emitting smoke till you have made it into fire.
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God Almighty never created a man half as wise as he looks.
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History is a mighty dramos, enacted upon the theatre of times, with suns for lamps and eternity for a background.
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Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, on which all science swims as a mere superficial film.
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Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fix his eyes thereon.
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Rich as we are in biography, a well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one; and there are certainly many more men whose history deserves to be recorded than persons willing and able to record it.
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Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
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If I had my way, the world would hear a pretty stern command - Exit Christ.
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My books are friends that never fail me.
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Speech is too often not the art of concealing thought, but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal.