Thomas Carlyle
Scottish essayist and historian, 1795-1881
95 quotes.
Quotes by Thomas Carlyle
- A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.
- A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things.
- A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading.
- 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 wisdom in it.
- A man with half a volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road.
- A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
- A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.
- Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
- Alas! the fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself.
- All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong.
- All that mankind has done, thought, gained, or been, it is all lying in magic preservation in the pages of books.
- All true Work is sacred; in all true Work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness.
- All work, even cotton spinning, is noble; work is alone noble ... A life of ease is not for any man, nor for any god.
- Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
- Blessed is the man who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. Know thy work, and do it; and work at it like Hercules. One monster there is in the world, the idle man.
- Books still accomplish miracles; they persuade men.
- Conviction, never so excellent, is worthless till it convert itself into conduct.
- Cast forth thy act, thy word, into the everliving, ever-working universe. It is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyan grove, perhaps, alas, as a hemlock forest, after a thousand years.
- Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
- Complaining profits little; stating of the truth may profit.
- Do the duty which lies nearest to thee. Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
- Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by Action alone.
- Earnestness alone makes life eternity.
- Endurance is patience concentrated.
- Every noble crown is, and on earth will ever be, a crown of thorns.
- Every noble work is at first 'impossible.' In very truth, for every noble work the possibilities will lie diffused through Immensity; inarticulate, undiscoverable except to faith.
- Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.
- Everywhere in life the true question is, not what we gain, but what we do; so also in intellectual matters it is not what we receive, but what we are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits us.
- For all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.
- For suffering and enduring there is no remedy but striving and doing.
- For there is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in Work.
- From the lowest depth there is a path to the loftiest height.
- Genius … means the transcendent capacity of taking trouble.
- Give us the man who sings at his work! Be his occupation what it may, he will be equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time; he will do it better; he will persevere longer.
- Go deep enough, there is music everywhere.
- Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: The end of man is an Action, and not a Thought, though it were the noblest.
- Happy men are full of the present, for its bounty suffices them; and wise men also, for its duties engage them. Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
- Have a purpose in life, and having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has given you.
- He that cannot be the servant of many will never be master, true guide, and deliverer of many.
- He who will do faithfully needs to believe firmly.