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
As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden, - "Speech is silver, Silence is golden;" or, as I might rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity
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.
When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze
Silence is the eternal duty of man.
The nobleness of silence. The highest melody dwells only in silence,--the sphere melody, the melody of health.
He who cannot withal keep his mind to himself cannot practice any considerable thing whatsoever.
Well might the ancients make silence a god; for it is the element of all godhood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness,--at once the source and the ocean wherein all such begins and ends.
The great silent man! Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world,--words with little meaning, actions with little worth,--one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence.
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the delight of life, which they are thenceforth to rule.
Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.
Speech is great, but silence is greater.
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
In a symbol there is concealment and yet revelation: here therefore, by Silence and by Speech acting together, comes a double significance.
Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.