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Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Thomas Carlyle Quotes

“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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Book:Sartor Resartus: The Historian
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“Learn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in,--a real, not an imaginary,--and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Carlyle
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“Cease to brag to me of America, and its model institutions and constitutions. America, too, will have to strain its energies, crack its sinews, and all but break its heart, as the rest of us have had to do, in thousand-fold wrestle with the Pythons, and mud-demons, before it can become a babitation for the gods.”

HeartAmericaEnergyBreakThousandModelsConstitutionInstitutionsCeaseDemonCracksMudStrainFoldsBragPython
Book:The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
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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!”

MenWorldLittlesTwoIdeasEnoughMy OwnAirDistanceSurpriseRateStrikesVisualsMidstPaceMechanismSurprisingTwelvePausesInsecureDissolutionUnfathomableCohesionHoveringDueling
Book:Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh
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“Consider in fact, a body of six hundred and fifty-eight miscellaneous persons, set to consult about "business," with twenty-seven millions, mostly fools, assiduously listening to them, and checking and criticising them. Was there ever, since the world began, will there ever be till the world end, any "business" accomplished in these circumstances?”

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Book:The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
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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.”

KnowsWayGivingMeanSelfSeemsEyeEarthHeavenWishWiseBloodWorstSorrowHighestEarsIslamFleshDenialVainResignationFlesh And BloodGod Is Great
Author:Thomas Carlyle
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