Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881)
Scottish essayist, satirist, and historian, whose work was hugely influential during the Victorian era.
The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with; as if, observes our author himself, any originality but our own could be expected to content us! In fact all strange thing are apt, without fault of theirs, to estrange us at first view, and unhappily scarcely anything is perfectly plain, but what is also perfectly common.
It is now almost my sole rule of life to clear myself of cants and formulas, as of poisonous Nessus shirts.
On the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Mahomet's is a kind of Christianity; has a genuine element of what is spiritually highest looking through it, not to be hidden by all its imperfections. The Scandinavian God Wish, the god of all rude men, — this has been enlarged into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a Heaven symbolical of sacred Duty, and to be earned by faith and well-doing, by valiant action, and a divine patience which is still more valiant. It is Scandinavian Paganism, and a truly celestial element superadded to that. Call it not false; look not at the falsehood of it, look at the truth of it. For these twelve centuries, it has been the religion and life-guidance of the fifth part of the whole kindred of Mankind. Above all things, it has been a religion heartily believed. These Arabs believe their religion, and try to live by it! No Christians, since the early ages, or only perhaps the English Puritans in modern times, have ever stood by their Faith as the Moslem do by theirs, — believing it wholly, fronting Time with it, and Eternity with it.
The Public is an old woman. Let her maunder and mumble.
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
One life; a little gleam of Time between two Eternities; no second chance to us for evermore!
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things.
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
"The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind."
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
The work we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages.
There is endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done.
Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporter's Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.
The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.
He who would write heroic poems should make his whole life a heroic poem.
Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an eloquent man not speaking the truth?