113 Quotes By 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 on age

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 on age

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.
Thomas Carlyle on alone

Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.
Thomas Carlyle on alone

Work alone is noble.
Thomas Carlyle on alone

Secrecy is the element of all goodness even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.
Thomas Carlyle on beauty

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
Thomas Carlyle on best

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

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 business

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

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

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 death.
Thomas Carlyle on death

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.
Thomas Carlyle on faith

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

He who has health, has hope and he who has hope, has everything.
Thomas Carlyle on fitness

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.
Thomas Carlyle on god

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 on god

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

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

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 good