Thomas Carlyle quotes

“Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Man is a tool-using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“No ghost was every seen by two pair of eyes.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Thought is the parent of the deed.”

— Thomas Carlyle

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

— Thomas Carlyle

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

— Thomas Carlyle

“Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Wonder is the basis of worship.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“All great peoples are conservative.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“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

“Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.”

— Thomas Carlyle