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 infinite, absolute character of Virtue has passed into a finite, conditional one; it is no longer a worship of the Beautiful and Good; but a calculation of the Profitable.
Society is founded on hero-worship.
Man always worships something; always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in something finite; and indeed can and must so see it in any finite thing, once tempt him well to fix his eyes thereon.
Worship of a hero is transcendent admiration of a great man.
Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally, among mankind.
Does not every true man feel that he is himself made higher by doing reverence to what is really above him?
Heroes, it would seem, exist always and a certain worship of them.
Wonder is the basis of worship.
Worship is transcendent wonder.
Sarcasm is the language of the devil, for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it
Real good breeding, as the people have it here, is one of the finest things now going in the world. The careful avoidance of all discussion, the swift hopping from topic to topic, does not agree with me; but the graceful style they do it with is beyond that of minuets!
Produce! Produce! Were it but the pitifullest infinitesimal fraction of a product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee: out with it, then.
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
If a book comes from the heart it will contrive to reach other hearts. All art and author craft are of small account to that.