Quotes by Thomas Carlyle with men

Thomas Carlyle

Thomas Carlyle

Scottish writer and historicus

Lived from: 1795 - 1881

Category: History and sociology | Writers (Contemporary) Country: FlagUnited Kingdom

Born: 4 december 1795 Died: 5 february 1881

  • All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong, and work unhappily for themselves and for you.
  • The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.
  • 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.
  • Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.
  • If a book comes from the heart it will contrive to reach other hearts. All art and author craft are of small account to that.
  • The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
  • 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.
  • That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.
  • I grow daily to honor 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • The person who cannot laugh is not only ready for treason, and deceptions, their whole life is already a treason and deception.
  • Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
  • Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.
  • What are your historical Facts; still more your biographical? Wilt thou know a man by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts?
  • No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
  • We call it a Society; and go about professing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named ''fair competition'' and so forth, it is a mutual hostility.
  • Not our logical faculty, but our imaginative one is king over us. I might say, priest and prophet to lead us to heaven-ward, or magician and wizard to lead us hellward.
  • Men do less than they ought unless they do all that they can.
  • The end of man is an action and not a thought, though it were the noblest.
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  • The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one
    Goethe's Works (1832)
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • All men, if they work not as in the great taskmaster's eye, will work wrong, and work unhappily for themselves and for you.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • 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.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • Great men are the commissioned guides of mankind, who rule their fellows because they are wiser.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • Heroism is the divine relation which, in all times, unites a great man to other men.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • 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.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • 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.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • Men do less than they ought unless they do all that they can.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • Men's hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • 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.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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Questions and Answers

What are the most famous quotes from Thomas Carlyle?

The two most famous quotes from Thomas Carlyle are:

  • "The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall."
  • "A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one"

When did Thomas Carlyle live?

Thomas Carlyle was born in 1795 and died in the year 1881.