Is not every true Reformer, by the nature of him, a Priest first of all? He appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible force; know… - Thomas Carlyle

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Is not every true Reformer, by the nature of him, a Priest first of all? He appeals to Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible force; knows that it, the invisible, is strong and alone strong. He is a believer in the divine truth of things; a seer, seeing through the shows of things; a worshipper, in one way or the other, of the divine truth of things; a Priest, that is. If he be not first a Priest, he will never be good for much as a Reformer.

English
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About Thomas Carlyle

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.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: The Sage of Chelsea
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Additional quotes by Thomas Carlyle

Religion was the pole-star for my father. Rude and uncultivated as he otherwise was, it made him and kept him "in all points a man." Oh! when I think that all the area in boundless space he had seen was limited to a circle of some fifty miles' diameter (he never in his life was farther or elsewhere so far from home as at Craigenputtoch), and all his knowledge of the boundless time was derived from his Bible and what the oral memories of old men could give him, and his own could gather; and yet, that he was such, I could take shame to myself. I feel to my father — so great though so neglected, so generous also towards me — a strange tenderness, and mingled pity and reverence peculiar to the case, infinitely soft and near my heart. Was he not a sacrifice to me? Had I stood in his place, could he not have stood in mine, and more? Thou good father! well may I forever honor thy memory. Surely that act was not without its reward. And was not nature great, out of such materials to make such a man?

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