Thomas Carlyle Quotes

There is endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

~ Thomas Carlyle

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

~ Thomas Carlyle

Today is not yesterday how can our works and thoughts if they are always to be the fittest continue always the same? Change indeed is painful yet ever needful.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Faith is loyalty to some inspired teacher some spiritual hero.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The end of man is action.

~ Thomas Carlyle

In the long run every government is the exact symbol of its people with their wisdom and unwisdom.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Innumerable are the illusions and legerdemain tricks of custom: but of all these perhaps the cleverest is her knack of persuading us that the miraculous by simple repetition ceases to be miraculous.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Without kindness there can be no true joy.

~ Thomas Carlyle

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Macaulay is well for awhile but one wouldn't live under Niagara.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Burke said there were three Estates in Parliament but in the reporters' gallery yonder there sat a fourth Estate more important than them all.

~ Thomas Carlyle

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

~ Thomas Carlyle

Time is the silent never-resting thing ... rolling rushing on swift silent like an all-embracing oceantide on which we and all the universe swim.

~ Thomas Carlyle

All reform except a moral one will prove unavailing.

~ 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

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

~ 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

Be not a slave of words.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Every noble work is at first impossible.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Work alone is noble.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it; better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Endurance is patience concentrated.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

~ Thomas Carlyle

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Wonder is the basis of worship.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.

~ Thomas Carlyle

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

~ Thomas Carlyle

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

~ Thomas Carlyle

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The eye sees what it brings the power to see.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

~ Thomas Carlyle

The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.

~ Thomas Carlyle

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

~ Thomas Carlyle