180 Famous Quotes by Thomas Carlyle
12/4/1795 - 2/5/1881
Professions:
Information:
About Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era. He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.
Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was expected to become a preacher by his parents, but while at the University of Edinburgh he lost his Christian faith. Calvinist values, however, remained with him throughout his life. His combination of a religious temperament with loss of faith in traditional Christianity, made Carlyle's work appealing to many Victorians who were grappling with scientific and political changes that threatened the traditional social order. He brought a trenchant style to his social and political criticism and a complex literary style to works such as The French Revolution: A History. Dickens used Carlyle's work as a primary source for the events of the French Revolution in his novel A Tale of Two Cities.
Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light
and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting
hostile empires, Necessity and Freewill.
Soul
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Goethe's Works
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Our grandly business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly
at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Action
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Signs of the Times
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The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with
new.
Action
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Signs of the Times
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Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the
English that of the sea, to the Germans that of--the air!
England
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Richter
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A certain man has called us, "of all peoples the wisest in
action," but he added, "the stupidest in speech."
England
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: The Nigger Question
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If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have
said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's
intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an
unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it that he himself
is aware of.
Shakespeare
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Characteristics of Shakespeare
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Genius . . . means the transcendent capacity of taking trouble.
Genius
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Frederick the Great (bk. IV, ch. III)
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Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all
others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?
Thought
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Heroes and Hero Worship (lecture I)
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If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated
readings deserves to be read at all.
Reading
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Goethe's Helena
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We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever
it may be, as he saw it.
Reading
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Goethe's Helena
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We are firm believers in the maxim that, for all right judgment
of any man or thing, it is useful, nay, essential, to see his
good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.
Character
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Goethe
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Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and
deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve
rebelling against.
Rebellion
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Goethe's Works
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He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of Movable
Types was disbanding hired armies and cashiering most Kings and
Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had
invented the Art of printing.
Printing
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Sartor Resartus (bk. I, ch. V)
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It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind
of work he is to do in this universe.
Work
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Address at Edinburgh
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Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is
eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.
Work
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Past and Present (bk. II, ch. XVII)
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All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.
Work
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Past and Present (bk. III, ch. IV)
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The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water
flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Influence
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs
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Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well; for as a whole
city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great
men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.
Influence
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Varnhagen von Ense's Memoirs
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If Hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero?
Heroes
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Heroes and Hero-Worship (lecture IV)
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Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist,
universally among Mankind.
Heroes
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Sartor Resartus--Organic Filaments
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A man must indeed be a hero to appear such in the eyes of his
valet.
[Fr., Il faut etre bien heros pour l'etre aux yeux de son
valet-de-chambre.]
Heroes
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Sartor Resartus--Organic Filaments
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What gained we, little moth? Thy ashes,
Thy one brief parting pang may show:
And withering thoughts for soul that dashes,
From deep to deep, are but a death more slow.
Moths
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Tragedy of the Night Moth (st. 14)
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