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Thomas Carlyle

70 quotes

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher who became one of the most influential social commentators of the Victorian era. Known for his passionate writing style and moral seriousness, Carlyle wrote extensively on history, heroism, and the human condition.

“In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom we have to say, Like People like Government.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Government

All Quotes by Thomas Carlyle

“If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?”

— Thomas Carlyle

Truth

“No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Great

“Science must have originated in the feeling that something was wrong.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Science

“Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Good

“Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Alone

“This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Science

“Music is well said to be the speech of angels.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Music

“True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Humor

“Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better, Silence is deep as Eternity speech is shallow as Time.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Good

“Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Imagination

“A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Work

“Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Good

“Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Age

“If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Men

“Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Men

“The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Happiness

“War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.”

— Thomas Carlyle

War

“Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Power

“Endurance is patience concentrated.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Patience

“To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.”

— Thomas Carlyle

God