Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Thomas Carlyle

Quote by Thomas Carlyle

Work

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished

This book is a compilation of critical and miscellaneous essays, brought together and republished for a new audience. more

Author

Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle, born on December 4, 1795, and died on February 5, 1881, was a prominent Scottish philosopher, historian, and writer. His works are known for their profound social criticism and unique literary style, which had a significant impact on 19th-century British literature and thought. more

You May Also Like

“All that a university or final highest school. can do for us is still but what the first school began doing--teach us to read. We learn to read in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the books themselves. It depends on what we read, after all manner of professors have done their best for us. The true university of these days is a collection of books.”

“I too acknowledge the all-out omnipotence of early culture and nature; hereby we have either a doddered dwarf-bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree! either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their education,--what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it.”

“How were friendship possible? In mutual devotedness to the good and true; otherwise impossible, except as armed neutrality or hollow commercial league. A man, be the heavens ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united in love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man.”