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
The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
History: A distillation of rumor.
Histories are as perfect as the Historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul.
All history . . . is an inarticulate Bible.
Great men are the inspired texts of that divine Book of Revelations, whereof a chapter is completed from epoch to epoch, and by some named History.
The whole past is the procession of the present.
History is a great dust heap.
Also, what mountains of dead ashes, wreck and burnt bones, does assiduous pedantry dig up from the past time and name it History.
What is all knowledge except recorded experience, and a product of history?
History after all is the true poetry.
At the bottom there is no perfect history; there is none such conceivable. All past centuries have rotted down, and gone confusedly dumb and quiet.
Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.
History is the distillation of rumour.
In a certain sense all men are historians.