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Quotes by S. Carlyle
92 quotations from The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations (1896), with the subject each one is filed under.
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.— filed under Music
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.— filed under Action
No nobler feeling than this, of admiration for one higher than himself, dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man's life.— filed under Admiration
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.— filed under Adversity
No man is born without ambitious worldly desires.— filed under Ambition
All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen pos session of men.— filed under Books
Lecture V. If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and au thorcraft are of small amount to that.— filed under Books
Lecture II. If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.— filed under Books
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.— filed under Books
The Hero as a Man of Letters. In the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nourishment, and an interpreting response to what ever is Deepest in him.— filed under Books
The true University of these days is a collec、 tion of Books.— filed under Books
To-day is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our Works and Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful; and if Memory have its force and worth, so also has Hope.— filed under Change
Clever men are good, but they are not the best.— filed under Character
Review, 1828. It can be said of him, When he departed he took a Man's life with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of Time.— filed under Character
London and Westminster Review. 1838. It is in general more profitable to reckon up our defects than to boast of our attainments.— filed under Character
We are firm believers in the maxim that, for all right judgment of any man or thing, it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.— filed under Character
Creation is great, and cannot be understood.— filed under Alphonso The Wise
There are but two ways of paying debt: increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out. S.— filed under Economy
Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property of a man.— filed under Fame
Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but maunders and mumbles.— filed under Fame
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.— filed under Faults
Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.— filed under Gain
No good Book, or good thing of any sort, shows its best face at first.— filed under Goodness
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.— filed under Greatness
The Everlasting Yea. Bk. II. Ch. IX. We have not the love of greatness, but the love of the love of greatness.— filed under Greatness
Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally among Mankind.— filed under Heroes
Filaments. If Hero mean sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero?— filed under Heroes
Lecture IV. Worship of a hero is transcendent admiration of a Great Man.— filed under Heroes
Letter 2. Also quoted by— filed under History
Happy the People whose Annals are blank in History-Books.— filed under History
Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.— filed under History
History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first distinct product of man's spiritual nature; his earliest expression of what can be called Thought.— filed under History
History is the essence of innumerable Biographies.— filed under History
In a certain sense all men are historians.— filed under History
Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.— filed under Humor
A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.— filed under Impossibility
1828. It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth.— filed under Impossibility
For no Act of a man, no Thing (how much less the man himself!) is extinguished when it disappears: through considerable time it still visibly works, though done and vanished.— filed under Influence
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.— filed under Influence
Moth. What gained we, little moth? Thy ashes, Thy one brief parting pang may show : And withering thoughts for soul that dashes, From deep to deep, are but a death more slow.— filed under Insects-Louse
He is wise who can instruct us and assist us in the business of daily virtuous living. S.— filed under Antisthenes
Britaine. 1637. P. 392. Woe to him, *** who has no court of appeal against the world's judgment.— filed under Judgment
For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light.— filed under Knowledge
What is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?— filed under Knowledge
And yet without labour there were no ease, no rest, so much as conceivable.— filed under Labor
, How much lies in Laughter: the cipherkey, wherewith we decipher the whole man. wherewith we decipher the whole man.— filed under Laughter
Oxford. Bodleian Library. The true University of these days is a collection of Books.— filed under Libraries
the New Year. A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.— filed under Life
One life;-a little gleam of Time between two Eternities.— filed under Life
The Hero as a Man of Letters. There is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.— filed under Life
Literary Men are * * * a perpetual priesthood.— filed under Literature
Literature. Literature is the thought of thinking Souls.— filed under Literature
Flight. Let Time and Chance combine, combine! Let Time and Chance combine! The fairest love from heaven above, That love of yours was mine, My Dear! That love of yours was mine.— filed under Love
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.— filed under Man
Without oblivion, there is no remembrance memory man is possible. When both oblivion and are wise, when the general soul of man is Past. clear, melodious, true, there may come a modern Iliad as memorial of the— filed under Obscurity
The Editor's Guests. The press is the fourth estate of the realm.— filed under Occupations-Jeweler
Great is the Tailor, but not the greatest.— filed under Occupations-Tailoring
The Orator persuades and carries all with him, he knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove that he ought to have persuaded and carried all with him.— filed under Oratory
For the eye of the intellect "sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing."— filed under Perception
Before Philosophy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy has to be in readiness, the Experience must be gathered and intelligibly recorded.— filed under Philosophy
For there is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also, it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed.— filed under Poetry
A Poet without Love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility.— filed under Poets
Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of the air!— filed under Possession
Speech is silver, silence is golden.— filed under Iii
We have not read an author till we have seen his object, whatever it may be, as he saw it.— filed under Reading
Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.— filed under Rebellion
His religion at best is an anxious wish,like that of Rabelais, a great Perhaps.— filed under Xxv
On the whole we must repeat the often repeated saying, that it is unworthy a religious man to view an irreligious one either with alarm or aversion; or with any other feeling than regret, and hope, and brotherly commiseration.— filed under Xxv
The Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past.— filed under Results
Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.— filed under Royalty
If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.— filed under Shakespeare
Silence is more eloquent than words.— filed under Silence
Lecture II. Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life, which they are thenceforth to rule. и.— filed under Silence
Speech is great; but silence is greater.— filed under Silence
Shakespeare. 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.— filed under Silence
Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting hostile empires, Necessity and Freewill. C.— filed under Sorrow
No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or to disbelieve it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!— filed under Sorrow
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.— filed under Speech
Of a truth, men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.— filed under Sympathy
Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?— filed under Thought
Lecture I. Thought once awakened does not again not again slumber.— filed under Thought
New Year. That great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean tide, on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb, -for we have no word to speak about it.— filed under Time
A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth.— filed under Truth
Lecture IV. We have oftener than once endeavoured to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vulgarly imputed to Shaftesbury, which however we can find nowhere in his works, that "ridicule is the test of truth."— filed under Truth
The fearful Unbelief is unbelief in yourself.— filed under Unbelief
Of Speaking Under the Rose. High Air-castles are cunningly built of Words, the Words well bedded also in good Logic-mortar; wherein, however, no Knowledge will come to lodge.— filed under Words
All work, even cotton-spinning, is noble; work is alone noble.— filed under Work
Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.— filed under Work
Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars!— filed under Work
Last lines. WORLD (THE). The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world.— filed under Work
Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fix his eyes thereon.— filed under Worship
Youth is to all the glad season of life; but often only by what it hopes, not by what it attains, or what it escapes.— filed under Wrongs