Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

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.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

Without kindness there can be no true joy.

Literature is the thought of thinking souls.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do that with all thy might and leave the issues calmly to God.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

A laugh, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart, for without kindness, there can be no true joy.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

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.

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

Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally, among mankind.

Man is emphatically a proselytizing creature.

One monster there is in the world, the idle man.

Not what you possess but what you do with what you have, determines your true worth.

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works and has his being.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

Laissez-faire, supply and demand-one begins to be weary of all that. Leave all to egotism, to ravenous greed of money, of pleasure, of applause-it is the gospel of despair.

He that can work is born to be king of something.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

Speech is great, but silence is greater.

That a Parliament, especially a Parliament with Newspaper Reporters firmly established in it, is an entity which by its very nature cannot do work, but can do talk only.

Instead of saying that man is the creature of circumstance, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstance.

As there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans (i.e. Muslim), I mean to say all the good of him I justly can.

Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment.

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.

Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.

Adversity is the diamond dust Heaven polishes its jewels with.

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.

Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.

All human souls, never so bedarkened, love light; light once kindled spreads till all is luminous.

The beginning of all wisdom is to look fixedly on clothes, or even with armed eyesight, till they become transparent.

Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement of man.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

Wise man was he who counselled that speculation should have free course, and look fearlessly towards all the thirty-two points of the compass, whithersoever and howsoever it listed.

To be true is manly, chivalrous, Christian; to be false is mean, cowardly, devilish.

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder.

If a man was great while living, he becomes tenfold greater when dead.

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.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only.

If there be no enemy there's no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

The soul gives unity to what it looks at with love.

It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe.

Acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze.