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
In our wide world there is but one altogether fatal personage, the dunce,--he that speaks irrationally, that sees not, and yet thinks he sees.
The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world.
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.
Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break; too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that "would," in this world of ours, is a mere zero to "should," and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to "shall.
Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars!
Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.
Nay, in every epoch of the world, the great event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a Thinker in the world?
The world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the common copper.
At worst, is not this an unjust world, full of nothing but beasts of prey, four-footed or two-footed?
Nothing ever happens but once in all this world. What I do now I do once for all. It is over and gone, with all its eternity of solemn meaning.
Habit and imitation--there is nothing more perennial in us than these two. They are the source of all working, and all apprenticeship, of all practice, and all learning, in this world.
The great soul of this world is just.
The world is a thing that a man must learn to despise, and even to neglect, before he can learn to reverence it, and work in it and for it.
One monster there is in the world, the idle man.