Thomas Carlyle quotes

“War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Clever men are good, but they are not the best.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“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.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“No person is important enough to make me angry.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.”

— 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

“For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther.”

— Thomas Carlyle

“He who could foresee affairs three days in advance would be rich for thousands of years.”

— Thomas Carlyle