Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.
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If I had my way, the world would hear a pretty stern command - Exit Christ.
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Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.
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The end of Man is an Action, and not a Thought, though it were the noblest?
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For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?
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For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer.
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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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Look to be treated by others as you have treated others.
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Let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself.
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A man must indeed be a hero to appear such in the eyes of his valet.
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Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
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The first duty of man is that of subduing fear.
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The Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere!
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All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.
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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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Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us?
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The dust of controversy is merely the falsehood flying off.
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There is something in man which your science cannot satisfy.
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He that can work is born to be king of something.
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No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
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Biography is the only true history.
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The best lesson which we get from the tragedy of Karbala is that Husain and his companions were rigid believers in God. They illustrated that the numerical superiority does not count when it comes to the truth and the falsehood. The victory of Husain, despite his minority, marvels me!
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Evil and good are everywhere, like shadow and substance; inseparable (for men) yet not hostile, only opposed.
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They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.