Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenWorldIfsSoulInspirationalLyingHistoryKindBookWorkHeartWholeLittlesMayKnowsDoeEyeLifePersonsWells

Famous Thomas Carlyle Quotes

“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
Create image

“When I gaze into the stars, they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces, like eyes glistening with tears over the little lot of man. Thousands of generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up by time, and there remains no record of them any more. Yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius and Pleiades, are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar!”

MenFirstsLooksLittlesHas BeensStillsEyeYoungCoursesStarsSpaceClearRecordsGenerationsTearsRemainsShiningSilentPitySereneShepherdsNoisySiriusOrion
Author:Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“They have their belief, these poor Tibet people, that Providence sends down always an Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom some belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, a belief that there is a Greatest Man; that he is discoverable; that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedience which knows no bounds. This is the truth of Grand Lamaism; the "discoverability" is the only error here.”

PeopleKnowsMenKindStillsBeliefPoorGenerationsBuddhismOughtTreatsErrorsBottomBoundsObedienceProvidencePopeIncarnationTibetGreatest Man
Author:Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in these regions of Europe till the eleventh century; 800 years ago the Norwegians were still worshipers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways.”

ThinkingMenWayYearsStillsRunningFatherInterestingOne ThingBloodCenturyHe ManEuropeYears AgoRegionsCreedsVeinsOur FatherPaganismNorwegiansOdinScandinaviansWiccan
Author:Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“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.”

IfsMenLifeMayMadeWholeCoursesForceGoalPovertyRichReadySafeErrorsIllGuidesWhole LifeSecureGuidanceBarriersSurroundBeatenTemptedHamper
Book:The Works of Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“It is no very good symptom, either of nations or individuals, that they deal much in vaticination. 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 clearly lies at hand.”

MenHandsLyingIndividualNationsDealsWiseDutyDistanceVery GoodSymptomsBountyHappy Man
Book:Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Burns. Life of Heyne. German playwrights. Voltaire. Novalis. Signs of the times. On history. Appendix: Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's review of Madame De Stael's 'Allemagne.' Schiller, Goethe and Madame De Stael
Create image

“This London City, with all of its houses, palaces, steam-engines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable traffic an tumult, what is it but a Thought, but millions of Thoughts made into One-a huge immeasurable Spirit of a Thought, embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, Palaces, Parliaments, Hackney Coaches, Katherine Docks, and the rest of it! Not a brick was made but some man had to think of the making of that brick.”

ThinkingMenMadeSpiritHouseCitiesMillionsHugeLondonCoachesDustSmokeIronEnginesTrafficBricksParliamentPalacesSteamCathedralsTumultDocksSteam EnginesHackney
Book:On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History
Create image

“Neither let mistakes and wrong directions - of which every man, in his studies and elsewhere, falls into many - discourage you. There is precious instruction to be got by finding that we are wrong. Let a man try faithfully, manfully to be right, he will grow daily more and more right. It is, at bottom, the condition which all men have to cultivate themselves. Our very walking is an incessant falling - a falling and a catching of ourselves before we come actually to the pavement! - it is emblematic of all things a man does.”

MenTryingDoeFallGrowsMistakeStudyConditionsWalkingFindingsAll ThingsBottomEvery ManInstructionElsewhereCatchingDiscouragingPavementIncessantWrong Direction
Author:Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.”

MenWellsSaidFactsFeltInspiringMusicDivineSpeechMusic IsAngelInfiniteMusicalUtteranceInspirational MusicArt And MusicWell SaidMusical LifeOld MusicPoetry And MusicMusic ManSpiritual Music
Book:Critical & Miscellaneous Essays: Collected & Republished
Create image