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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.

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Work

All Quotes by Thomas Carlyle

“All great peoples are conservative.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Great

“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

“He who has health, has hope and he who has hope, has everything.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Fitness

“It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Hope

“Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Business

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Knowledge

“For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that - is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?”

— Thomas Carlyle

Good

“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

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Work

“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

“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Great

“Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Humor

“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

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Courage

“In books lies the soul of the whole past time.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Time

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Music

“I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Great

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Wisdom

“The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.”

— Thomas Carlyle

Business

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Happiness