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.
Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a crown of
thorns.
Royalty
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Past and Present (bk. III, ch. VIII)
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I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade. And the good Lord will
forgive me: that's his.
[Fr., Moi, je serai autocrate: c'est mon metier. Et le bon Dieu
me pardonnnera: c'est son metier.]
Royalty
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Past and Present (bk. III, ch. VIII)
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The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how;
the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and
carried all with him.
Oratory
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Characteristics
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For the eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought
with it the means of seeing."
- Thomas Carlyle,
Intellect
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Varnhagen Von Ense's Memoirs--London and Westminster Review
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We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of
course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Intellect
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Varnhagen Von Ense's Memoirs--London and Westminster Review
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The unspeakable Turk should be immediately struck out of the
question, and the country be left to honest European guidance.
Turkey
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: in a letter to a meeting at St. James Hall, London, 1876
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How much lies in Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher
the whole man.
Laughter
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Sartor Resartus (bk. I, ch. IV)
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Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic
genius.
Humor
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays-Schiller
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Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion
that he is trying to be funny.
Humor
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays-Schiller
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This Mirabeau's work, then is done. He sleeps with the primeval
giants. He has gone over to the majority: "Abiit ad plures."
Epitaphs
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essay on Mirabeau (close)
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We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to
that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we
can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of
truth."
Ridicule
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--Voltaire
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Is not every meanest day the confluence of two eternities?
Day
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: French Revolution (pt. I, bk. VI, ch. V)
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So here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of eternity
This new day is born,
Into eternity
At night will return.
Day
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: To-day
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Day of wrath that day of burning,
Seer and Sibyl speak concerning,
All the world to ashes turning.
[Lat., Dies irae, dies illa!
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sybilla.]
Day
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: To-day
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If they could forget for a moment the correggiosity of Correggio
and the learned babble of the sale-room and varnishing
Auctioneer.
Painting
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Frederick the Great (bk. IV, ch. III)
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No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for one higher than
himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at
all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life.
Admiration
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Heroes and Hero Worship
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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.
Philosophy
Quotes, by Thomas Carlyle , Source: Essays--On History
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