Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
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Social Science, is not a 'gay science' but rueful, which finds the secret of this universe in 'supply and demand' and reduces the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone. Not a 'gay science', no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, the dismal science.
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Tobacco smoke is the one element in which, by our European manners, men can sit silent together without embarrassment, and where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually and veritably got to say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to stop short of that point; and at all events to hold his peace and take to his pipe again the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he chance to have any.
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Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance.
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Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being.
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The deadliest sin were the consciousness of no sin.
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Does it ever give thee pause that men used to have a soul? Not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech, but as a thruth that they knew and acted upon. Verily it was another world then, but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls. We shall have to go in search of them again or worse in all ways shall befall us.
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A stammering man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It is an excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow creature, that makes him stammer.
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History is philosophy teaching by experience.
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A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.
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Speech that leads not to action, still more that hinders it, is a nuisance on the earth.
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Creation is great, and cannot be understood.
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Generations are as the days of toilsome mankind; death and birth are the vesper and the matin bells that summon mankind to sleep and to rise refreshed for new advancement. What the father has made, the son can make and enjoy; but has also work of his own appointed him. Thus all things wax and roll onwards: arts, establishments, opinions, nothing is ever completed, but ever completing.
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The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world.
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Venerable to me is the hard hand,--crooked, coarse,--wherein, notwithstanding, lies a cunning virtue, indispensably royal as of the sceptre of the planet.
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It is in general more profitable to reckon up our defeats than to boast of our attainments.
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Intellect is the soul of man, the only immortal part of him.
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Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.
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We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give ear to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and wishes; to know that we know nothing, that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems, that we have to receive whatsoever befalls us as sent from God above, and say, "It is good and wise,--God is great! Though He slay me, yet I trust in Him." Islam means, in its way, denial of self. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth.
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With respect to duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things in this so surprising world strike me with more surprise. Two little visual spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of the unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon, make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl around, and simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one another into dissolution; and, offhand, become air, and non-extant--the little spitfires!
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The aristocracy of feudal parchment has passed away with a mighty rushing, and now, by a natural course, we arrive at aristocracy of the money-bag.
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Before philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded.
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The all importance of clothes has sprung up in the intellect of the dandy without effort, like an instinct of genius; he is inspired with clothes, a poet of clothes.
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It is now almost my sole rule of life to clear myself of cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus shirts.