Philosopher · Scottish · 1795 – 1881 · 153 quotes
Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.
Thomas Carlyle
Philosopher · Scottish · 1795 – 1881
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall.
Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will.
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.
Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.
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.
Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
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.
Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
The eye sees what it brings the power to see.
The spiritual is the parent of the practical.
Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.
Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.
No ghost was every seen by two pair of eyes.
The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.
Let each become all that he was created capable of being.
What you see, but can't see over is as good as infinite.
If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded.
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.
Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
Happy the people whose annals are vacant.
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.
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?
Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
No person is important enough to make me angry.
The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.
To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.
Man's unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.
Silence is more eloquent than words.
Endurance is patience concentrated.
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.
Be not a slave of words.
Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.
It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.
History, a distillation of rumour.
Work alone is noble.
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.
All great peoples are conservative.
Thought is the parent of the deed.
Necessity dispenseth with decorum.
Wonder is the basis of worship.
Worship is transcendent wonder.
No violent extreme endures.
No pressure, no diamonds.
Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, - till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.
