 |
(no category)
|
|
Only perhaps in the United States, which alone of countries can do without governing,every man being at least able to live, and move off into the wilderness, let Congress jargon as it will,can such a form of so-called Government continue for any length of time to torment men with the semblance, when the indispensable substance is not there.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Of America it would ill beseem any Englishman, and me perhaps as little as another, to speak unkindly, to speak unpatriotically, if any of us even felt so. Sure enough, America is a great, and in many respects a blessed and hopeful phenomenon. Sure enough, these hardy millions of Anglosaxon men prove themselves worthy of their genealogy. But as to a Model Republic, or a model anything, the wise among themselves know too well that there is nothing to be said. Their Constitution, such as it may be, was made here, not there. Cease to brag to me of America, and its model institutions and constitutions.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Democracy will prevail when men believe the vote of Judas as good as that of Jesus Christ.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
The most unhappy of all men is the man who cannot tell what he is going to do, who has got no work cut-out for him in the world, and does not go into it. For work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind,honest work, which you intend getting done.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
That a Parliament, especially a Parliament with Newspaper Reporters firmly established in it, is an entity which by its very nature cannot do work, but can do talk only.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Ability
|
|
|
What you see, but can't see over is as good as infinite.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Action(s)
|
|
|
Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Narrative is linear, but action has breadth and depth as well as height and is solid.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Adversity
|
|
|
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Advice
|
|
|
Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Age
|
|
|
Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Anger
|
|
|
In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Argument & Debate
|
|
|
The dust of controversy is merely the falsehood flying off.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things. A sad case for him when all that he can manage to believe is something he can button in his pocket, and with one or the other organ eat and digest! Lower than that he will not get.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Authors & Writing
|
|
|
Writing is a dreadful labor, yet not so dreadful as Idleness.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Beginnings
|
|
|
In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
Belief
|
|
|
Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
|
|
No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.
-Thomas Carlyle
|
Books by and about Thomas Carlyle