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

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better.

Thomas Carlyle

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...

Thomas Carlyle

The whole universe is but a huge Symbol of god".

Thomas Carlyle

War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against one other.

Thomas Carlyle

Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don't happen at all.

Thomas Carlyle

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

Thomas Carlyle

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

Thomas Carlyle

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Thomas Carlyle

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

Thomas Carlyle

Be not a slave of words.

Thomas Carlyle

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

Thomas Carlyle

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

Thomas Carlyle

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

Thomas Carlyle

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

Thomas Carlyle

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Thomas Carlyle

Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.

Thomas Carlyle

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.

Thomas Carlyle

History, a distillation of rumour.

Thomas Carlyle

There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.

Thomas Carlyle

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 de...

Thomas Carlyle

I grow daily to honour 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.

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