Philosopher · Scottish · 1795 – 1881 · 153 quotes
Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
Thomas Carlyle
Philosopher · Scottish · 1795 – 1881
Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith.
The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart.
Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.
A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner.
If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.
The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.
A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.
Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.
Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.
In books lies the soul of the whole past time.
In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.
Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.
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.
Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.
Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.
I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.
A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.
Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.
I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am.
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.
The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.
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.
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.
Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness.
When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.
I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.
Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.
Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther.
No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.
None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.
Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist.
The true university of these days is a collection of books.
A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.
Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.
Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.
Every noble work is at first impossible.
It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale.
