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
Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.
Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.
No age seemed the age of romance to itself.
Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is.
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.
There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
The cut of a garment speaks of intellect and talent and the color of temperament and heart.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale.
Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant; all objects are as windows through which the philosophic eye looks into infinitude itself.
Be not a slave of words.
The real use of gunpowder is to make all men tall.
The actual well seen is ideal.
Evil, once manfully fronted, ceases to be evil; there is generous battle-hope in place of dead, passive misery; the evil itself has become a kind of good.