Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlylewas a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher. Considered one of the most important social commentators of his time, he presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. One of those conferences resulted in his famous work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History where he explains that the key role in history lies in the actions of the "Great Man", claiming that "History is nothing but the biography of the...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth4 December 1795
With union grounded on falsehood and ordering us to speak and act lies, we will not have anything to do. Peace? A brutal lethargy is peaceable; the noisome is peaceable. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one!
Superstition! that horrid incubus which dwelt in darkness, shunning the light, with all its racks, and poison chalices, and foul sleeping draughts, is passing away without return. Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky; but the stars are there and will reappear.
Blessed be the God's voice; for it is true, and falsehoods have to cease before it!
A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth.
The scandalous bronze-lacquer age of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotences, and mendacities, will have to run its course, till the pit follow it.
He who talks much about virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspected; it is shrewdly guessed that where there is great preaching there will be little almsgiving.
No country can find eternal peace and comfort where the vote of Judas Iscariot is as good as the vote of the Saviour of mankind.
The deepest depth of vulgarism is that of setting up money as the ark of the covenant.
The vulgarity of inanimate things requires time to get accustomed to; but living, breathing, bustling, plotting, planning, human vulgarity is a species of moral ipecacuanha, enough to destroy any comfort.
Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement of man.
The modern majesty consists in work. What a man can do is his greatest ornament, and he always consults his dignity by doing it.
Goethe's devil is a cultivated personage and acquainted with the modern sciences; sneers at witchcraft and the black art even while employing them, and doubts most things, nay, half disbelieves even his own existence.
Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to rise above the mind.
If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.