Quotes by Thomas Carlyle with past

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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Quotes 1 till 5 of 5.

  • In books lies the soul of the whole past time.
    On Heroes 5
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • The true past departs not, no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die; but all is still here, and, recognized or not, lives and works through endless change.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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  • The whole past is the procession of the present.
    ― Thomas Carlyle
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