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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.

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“Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Death

All Quotes by Thomas Carlyle

“A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Knowledge

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Imagination

“I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.”

— Thomas Carlyle

God

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Alone

“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

“Reform is not pleasant, but grievous no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Work

“I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Wisdom

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Happiness

“The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Courage

“Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Music

“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

“History, a distillation of rumour.”

— Thomas Carlyle

History

“The eye sees what it brings the power to see.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Power

“Every noble work is at first impossible.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Work

“For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Good

“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

“What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Teacher

“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

“Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Time

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Science