Famous Thomas Carlyle Quotations

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"Oh, give us the man who sings at his work."
by Thomas Carlyle
"What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The true university of these days is a collection of books."
by Thomas Carlyle
"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."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards, but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion."
by Thomas Carlyle
"The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Thought is the parent of the deed."
by Thomas Carlyle
"To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself."
by Thomas Carlyle
"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."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects."
by Thomas Carlyle
"What you see, but can't see over is as good as infinite."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Youth is to all the glad season of life; but often only by what it hopes, not by what it attains, or what it escapes."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains."
by Thomas Carlyle
"For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding."
by Thomas Carlyle
"It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe."
by Thomas Carlyle
"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight."
by Thomas Carlyle
"No violent extreme endures."
by Thomas Carlyle
"One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Real good breeding, as the people have it here, is one of the finest things now going in the world. The careful avoidance of all discussion, the swift hopping from topic to topic, does not agree with me; but the graceful style they do it with is beyond that of minuets!"
by Thomas Carlyle
"Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Science must have originated in the feeling that something was wrong."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Not what I have, but what I do is my kingdom."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith."
by Thomas Carlyle
"It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five."
by Thomas Carlyle
"In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government."
by Thomas Carlyle
"In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man"
by Thomas Carlyle
"In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries."
by Thomas Carlyle
"All great peoples are conservative."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one."
by Thomas Carlyle
"No person is important enough to make me angry."
by Thomas Carlyle
"No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor."
by Thomas Carlyle
"There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune."
by Thomas Carlyle
"When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road a man with a whole volition advances on the roughest, and will reach his purpose, if there be even a little worthiness in it. The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life and having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A vein of poetry exists in the hearts of all men."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A strong mind always hopes, and has always cause to hope."
by Thomas Carlyle
"A well written life is almost as rare as a well spent one."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity."
by Thomas Carlyle
"All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Be not a slave of words."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Biography is the only true history"
by Thomas Carlyle
"Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Blessed is he who has found his work let him ask no other blessedness."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Clever men are good, but they are not the best."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Endurance is patience concentrated."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Enjoy things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Enjoy things which are pleasant that is not the evil it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Foolish men imagine that because judgement for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgement 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"
by Thomas Carlyle
"For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad."
by Thomas Carlyle
"For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that - is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?"
by Thomas Carlyle
"France was a long despotism tempered by epigrams."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Happy the people whose annals are vacant."
by Thomas Carlyle
"Happy the people whose annals are blank in the history books"
by Thomas Carlyle
"Happy are the people whose annals are blank in history books"
by Thomas Carlyle
"He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything."
by Thomas Carlyle
"He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years."
by Thomas Carlyle
"History, a distillation of rumour."
by Thomas Carlyle
"History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion."
by Thomas Carlyle
"History is the essence of innumerable biographies."
by Thomas Carlyle
"History is the essence of innumerable biographies"
by Thomas Carlyle
"Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius."
by Thomas Carlyle
"I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."
by Thomas Carlyle


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