Quotessence
Home / Authors / Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenWorldIfsSoulInspirationalLyingHistoryKindBookWorkHeartWholeLittlesMayKnowsDoeEyeLifePersonsWells

Famous Thomas Carlyle Quotes

“No sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavoring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself.”

MenWayLittlesDoeArtCharacterTogetherVisionMirrorsPropertyRoundsCrowdsGreat MenBiographiesAfarReflexesLittle ManHoveringScanning
Book:Critical and Miscellaneous Essays
Create image

“Dinners are defined as 'the ultimate act of communion;' men that can have communion in nothing else, can sympathetically eat together, can still rise into some glow of brotherhood over food and wine.”

MenStillsTogetherUltimateWineDinnerDefinedBrotherhoodCommunionFood And Wine
Book:The French Revolution: a History: In Three Parts: I. the Bastille; II. the Constitution; III. the Guillotine : in Two Volumes
Create image

“No man at bottom means injustice; it is always for some obscure distorted image of a right that he contends: an obscure image diffracted, exaggerated, in the wonderfulest way by natural dimness and selfishness; getting tenfold more diffracted by exasperation of contest, till at length it become all but irrecognis-able.”

MenWayMeanAbleNaturalBottomInjusticeSelfishnessLengthObscureContestsExaggeratedExasperation
Book:The Works of Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“This is the eternal law of Nature for a man, my beneficent Exeter-Hall friends; this, that he shall be permitted, encouraged, and if need be, compelled to do what work the Maker of him has intended by the making of him for this world! Not that he should eat pumpkin with never such felicity in the West India Islands is, or can be, the blessedness of our Black friend; but that he should do useful work there, according as the gifts have been bestowed on him for that.”

MenShouldHas BeensPurposeMakersBe Encouraged
Author:Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“Only perhaps in the United States, which alone of countries can do without governing,every man being at least able to live, and move off into the wilderness, let Congress jargon as it will,can such a form of so-called Government continue for any length of time to torment men with the semblance, when the indispensable substance is not there.”

MenCountryStatesGovernmentAbleMovingFormCan DoUnitedUnited StatesCongressEvery ManSubstanceWildernessLengthIndispensableTormentGoverningJargonSemblance
Book:The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“Hero-worship is the deepest root of all; the tap-root, from which in a great degree all the rest were nourished and grown . . . Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable; I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of men.”

MenStillsFeelingsHeroHigherDegreesWorshipRootsBottomGreat MenBreastsAdmirationAdmirableTranscendentHero Worship
Book:On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History
Create image

“All sorts of Heroes are intrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to the Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to speak of this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a great, victorious, enduring manner; there is given a Hero, -- the outward shape of whom will depend on the time and the environment he finds himself in.”

MenSoulFightingSpeakGivenEnvironmentDivineMaterialsDependsHeroFitShapesEndureSignificanceGreat SoulsSignificance Of Life
Book:The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“The Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere!”

IfsMenKindDoeHelpingLawAsksSpeakWalksDependsOne DayConsciousGreat MenSincereSincerityBoastInsincerityBeing Sincere
Book:The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle
Create image

“A fundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man . . . A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no right man.”

MenStrongWalksActingMistakeStrengthFitSixWeightFundamentalsX MenStrong ManStaggeringRigidityNot StrongRight ManVehemence
Book:On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History
Create image

“In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by silence and by speech acting together, comes a double significance. In the symbol proper, what we can call a symbol, there is ever, more or less distinctly and directly, some embodiment and revelation of the Infinite; the Infinite is made to blend itself with the Finite, to stand visible, and as it were, attainable there. By symbols, accordingly, is man guided and commanded, made happy, made wretched.”

MenMadeTogetherActingSilenceSpeechInfiniteSymbolsVisibleRevelationsSignificanceFiniteWretchedEmbodimentConcealmentActing Together
Book:Carlyle Reader
Create image