Quotes by Thomas Carlyle

About Thomas Carlyle:

Thomas Carlyle is nothing but the biography of the Great Man".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

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

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

Thomas Carlyle

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

Thomas Carlyle

Laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.

Thomas Carlyle

Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.

Thomas Carlyle

Happy the people whose annals are vacant.

Thomas Carlyle

If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.

Thomas Carlyle

The word of Mohammad is a voice direct from nature's own heart - all else is wind in comparison.

Thomas Carlyle

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

Thomas Carlyle

My books are friends that never fail me." ( ; 17 March 1817)

Thomas Carlyle

No magic Rune is stranger than a Book. 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 possession of men.

Thomas Carlyle

(Quoted by Thomas Carlyle) The rude man requires only to see something going on. The man of more refinement must be made to feel. The man of complete refinement must be made to reflect.

Thomas Carlyle

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of two everlasting empires, necessity and free will.

Thomas Carlyle

Surely of all ‘rights of man’, this right of the ignorant man to be guided by the wiser, to be, gently or forcibly, held in the true course by him, is the indisputablest.

Thomas Carlyle

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.

Thomas Carlyle

Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see further.

Thomas Carlyle

Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path .. A thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do .. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him.

Thomas Carlyle

All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books. They are the chosen possession of men.

Thomas Carlyle

Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.

Thomas Carlyle

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

Thomas Carlyle

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Carlyle
  • DescriptionScottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
  • BornDecember 4, 1795
  • DiedFebruary 4, 1881
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionLinguist; Literary Historian; Historian; Translator; Mathematician; Philosopher; Essayist; Writer
  • WorksSartor Resartus; On Heroes, Hero-Worship, And The Heroic In History
  • AwardsOrder Of Merit For Arts And Science