113 Quotes By Thomas Carlyle


What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle on teacher

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

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 on time

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better, Silence is deep as Eternity speech is shallow as Time.
Thomas Carlyle on time

Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.
Thomas Carlyle on time

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
Thomas Carlyle on time

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.
Thomas Carlyle on time

If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?
Thomas Carlyle on truth

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
Thomas Carlyle on truth

For, if a good speaker, never so eloquent, does not see into the fact, and is not speaking the truth of that - is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?
Thomas Carlyle on truth

War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.
Thomas Carlyle on war

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
Thomas Carlyle on wisdom

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 on wisdom

Every noble work is at first impossible.
Thomas Carlyle on work

Work alone is noble.
Thomas Carlyle on work

Blessed is he who has found his work let him ask no other blessedness.
Thomas Carlyle on work

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.
Thomas Carlyle on work

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun.
Thomas Carlyle on work

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

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