Thomas Carlyle Quotes - Page 17

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• Over the times thou hast no power. . . . Solely over one man thou hast quite absolute power. Him redeem and make honest.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Honesty, Power, Men

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• In the true Literary Man there is thus ever, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's Priest; -- guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Dark, Men, Fire

  Thomas Carlyle (1871). “The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.302

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• Is not cant the materia prima of the devil, from which all falsehoods, imbecilities, abominations, body themselves, from which no true thing can come? For cant is itself the properly a double-distilled lie, the second power of a lie.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Lying, Devil, Body

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “The French Revolution: a History”, p.48

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• Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Depth, Narrative, Height

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• Books are a triviality. Life alone is great.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Life, Book, Triviality

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• History is a great dust heap.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Dust, History

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• Evil and good are everywhere, like shadow and substance; inseparable (for men) yet not hostile, only opposed.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Evil, Shadow

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• A person with half volition goes backwards and forwards, but makes no progress on even the smoothest of roads.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Commitment, Progress, Half

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• With respect to duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things in this so surprising world strike me with more surprise. Two little visual spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the midst of the unfathomable, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very soon, make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl around, and simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one another into dissolution; and, offhand, become air, and non-extant--the little spitfires!

  Thomas Carlyle

  Distance, Insecure, Men

  Thomas Carlyle (2015). “Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh”, p.161, The Floating Press

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• Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Patience, Foolish, Parliament

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.619, Lulu.com

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• Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, with which all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite... Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarreling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: It is even, as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Sunshine, Greatness, Men

  "Selections from Carlyle".

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• The grand result of schooling is a mind with just vision to discern, with free force to do: the grand schoolmaster is Practice.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Education, Practice, Mind

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “Works”, p.190

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• The Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere!

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Law, One Day

  Thomas Carlyle (1871). “The Collected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.218

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• If I had my way, the world would hear a pretty stern command - Exit Christ.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Atheism, World, Way

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• I grow daily to honor facts more and more, and theory less and less.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Honor, Atheism, Facts

  Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, April 29, 1836

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• Before philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Philosophy, Teach, Readiness

  Thomas Carlyle, G. B. Tennyson (1984). “Carlyle Reader”, p.57, CUP Archive

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• Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.

  Thomas Carlyle

  History, Imagination, Cogs

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• The thing is not only to avoid error, but to attain immense masses of truth.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Truth, Errors, Mass

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• What this country needs is a man who knows God other than by heresay.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Country, Men, Needs

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• He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Life, Writing, Heroic

  Thomas Carlyle (1857). “Life of Friedrich Schiller (1825): Life of John Sterling (1851)”, p.37

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• Fancy that thou deservest to be hangedthou wilt feel it happiness to be only shot: fancy that thou deservest to be hanged ina hair halter, it will be a luxury to die in hemp.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Luxury, Hair, Guilt

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• The Persians are called the French of the East; we will call the Arabs Oriental Italians. A gifted noble people; a people of wildstrong feelings, and of iron restraint over these: the characteristic of noblemindedness, of genius.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Iron, People, Feelings

  Thomas Carlyle (2016). “Heroes and Hero Worship: The Historian”, p.43, 北戴河出版

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• And there are Ben [Jonson] and William Shakespeare in wit-combat, sure enough; Ben bearing down like a mighty Spanish war-ship, fraught with all learning and artillery; Shakespeare whisking away from him - whisking right through him, athwart the big bulk and timbers of him; like a miraculous Celestial Light-ship, woven all of sheet-lightning and sunbeams!

  Thomas Carlyle

  War, Light, Ships

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• All human things do require to have an ideal in them; to have some soul in them.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Soul, Humans, Ideals

  Thomas Carlyle (1843). “Past and Present”, p.109

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• It is no very good symptom, either of nations or individuals, that they deal much in vaticination. Happy men are full of the present, for its bounty suffices them; and wise men also, for its duties engage them. Our grand business undoubtedly is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what clearly lies at hand.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Wise, Distance, Lying

  Thomas Carlyle (1872*). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Burns. Life of Heyne. German playwrights. Voltaire. Novalis. Signs of the times. On history. Appendix: Jean Paul Friedrich Richter's review of Madame De Stael's 'Allemagne.' Schiller, Goethe and Madame De Stael”

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