Thomas Carlyle Quotes

Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher (1795–1881)

Thomas Carlyle (December 4 1795 – February 5 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher of great prominence during the Victorian era. His wife was Jane Welsh Carlyle.

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Alternative Names: The Sage of Chelsea

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Does it ever give thee pause that men used to have a soul? Not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech, but as a thruth that they knew and acted upon. Verily it was another world then, but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls. We shall have to go in search of them again or worse in all ways shall befall us.

Intellect is not speaking and logicising; it is seeing and ascertaining.

"Of all the acts of man, repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults . . . is to be conscious of none." (Thomas Carlyle)

Look to be treated by others as you have treated others.

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

You may take my purse; but I cannot have my moral Self annihilated. The purse is any Highwayman's who might meet me with a loaded pistol: but the Self is mine and God my Maker's; it is not yours; and I will resist you to the death, and revolt against you ...

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

Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all they can.

In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.

Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only Diabolic Life, were more frightful: but in our age of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb.

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.

Well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow Dream.

History of the world is the biography of the great man. And I said: The great man always act like a thunder. He storms the skies, while others are waiting to be stormed.

When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.