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Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Thomas Carlyle Quotes

“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.”

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Author:Thomas Carlyle
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“Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with; as if, observes our author himself, any originality but our own could be expected to content us! In fact all strange thing are apt, without fault of theirs, to estrange us at first view, and unhappily scarcely anything is perfectly plain, but what is also perfectly common.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Carlyle
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“The great law of culture is, Let each become all that he was created capable of being; expand, if possible, to his full growth; resisting all impediments, casting off all foreign, especially all noxious adhesions, and show himself at length in his own shape and stature be these what they may.”

IfsMayShowsLawCultureGrowthShapesCapableLengthCastingResistingStatureImpedimentsCasting Off
Book:Critical and Miscellaneous Essays ...
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“Taste, if it mean anything but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness, a sense to discern, and a heart to love and reverence all beauty, order, goodness, wheresoever, or in whatsoever forms and accompaniments they are to be seen. This surely implies, as its chief condition, not any given external rank or situation, but a finely-gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself, into keenness and justness of vision; above all, kindled into love and generous admiration.”

IfsMindHeartMeanFormOrderGivenSituationVisionConditionsTasteGoodnessHarmonyAll KindsChiefsGenerousAdmirationReverenceGiftedSusceptibilityKeenness
Book:Critical and miscellaneous essays, collected and republ
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“Poverty, we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made barriers, which if they do mournfully gall and hamper, do at least prescribe for him, and force on him, a sort of course and goal; a safe and beaten, though a circuitous, course. A great part of his guidance is secure against fatal error, is withdrawn from his control. The rich, again, has his whole life to guide, without goal or barrier, save of his own choosing, and, tempted, is too likely to guide it ill.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Carlyle
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“These Arabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century, - is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Granada! I said, the Great man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would flame.”

IfsMenWorldSaidHeavenCenturyHe ManProveIslamFlamesFallenIslamicFuelGreat MenSparksLightningExplosivesPowderDelhiGranada
Book:Sartor Resartus
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“Contented saturnine human figures, a dozen or so of them, sitting around a large long table...Perfect equality is to be the rule; no rising or notice taken when anybody enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks; if he cannot smoke...let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things.”

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Author:Thomas Carlyle
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“Tobacco smoke is the one element in which, by our European manners, men can sit silent together without embarrassment, and where no man is bound to speak one word more than he has actually and veritably got to say. Nay, rather every man is admonished and enjoined by the laws of honor, and even of personal ease, to stop short of that point; and at all events to hold his peace and take to his pipe again the instant he has spoken his meaning, if he chance to have any.”

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Book:The Works of Thomas Carlyle: History of Friedrich II of Prussia, called Frederick the Great
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“If you will believe me, you who are young, yours is the golden season of life. As you have heard it called, so it verily is, the seed-time of life; in which, if you do not sow, or if you sow tares instead of wheat, you cannot expect to reap well afterwards, and you will arrive at little. And in the course of years when you come to look back, if you have not done what you have heard from your advisers,-and among many counsellors there is wisdom,-you will bitterly repent when it is too late.”

IfsYearsBelieveWellsLooksLittlesDoneYoungCoursesHeardLateTrainingSeasonsSeedsGoldenToo LateBelieve In MeRepentReapWheatAdviserSeasons Of LifeCounsellors
Book:Autobiography of J.S. Mill & on Liberty; Characteristics, Inaugural Address at Edinburgh & Sir Walter Scott
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“To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility; it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the living banished thither companionless, conscious? Why, if there is no Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God?”

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Book:Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
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“Cherish what is dearest while you have it near you, and wait not till it is far away. Blind and deaf that we are; oh, think, if thou yet love anybody living, wait not till death sweep down the paltry little dust clouds and dissonances of the moment, and all be made at last so mournfully clear and beautiful, when it is too late.”

IfsThinkingLittlesMadeMomentsLastsBeautifulWaitingClearLateBlindCloudsDustToo LateCherishFar AwayDeafDissonance
Author:Thomas Carlyle
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