Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) was an eminent—and controversial—Scottish historian, political philosopher, and essayist from the Victorian era.
Known for his incisive critique of British society, Carlyle was one of the most significant thinkers of the nineteenth century. However, since the early 1900s, his work has been criticized for his belief that powerful, heroic individuals can transform the course of humanity and for his adoration of the Germanic spirit—both of which invigorated Nazi ideologues.
Carlyle studied and translated German literature in his early years. Some of his earliest writings describe a polarity between the “sacrificial seriousness” of the German culture and the “superficial, pleasure-seeking” British culture. In Signs of the Times (1829,) he described the chasm between the material advancements of the machine age and the soulless mediocrity of “modern man.”
Carlyle’s first truly successful book was The French Revolution (3 vols., 1837.) Considered a reliable account of the early course of the Revolution, it was used for reference by Charles Dickens while writing his A Tale of Two Cities (1859.)
At the core of Carlyle’s political philosophy was his attribution of all historical progress solely to mighty heroes who served as role models for how people should live. He wrote, “No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.” He expounded these beliefs in The French Revolution, On Heroes and Hero Worship (1841,) and History of Frederick the Great (6 vols., 1858–65.) These books profoundly influenced German and Italian fascism and painted Carlyle as a progenitor of the concept of totalitarian regimes.
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What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite.
—Thomas Carlyle
Silence is more eloquent than words.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Silence
In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Beginning
With stupidity and sound digestion man may front much.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Health
Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Perfection
Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Facts
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 best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature
Is man’s civilization only a wrappage, through which the savage nature of him can still burst, infernal as ever?
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Civilization
All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Greatness
Experience is the best of schoolmasters, only the school fees are heavy.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Experience
The eye of the intellect sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing.
—Thomas Carlyle
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Duty, Vision, Action, Time Management, Life, Time, Value of Time, Present, The Present, Doing Your Best
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Suffering, Life
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
Speech is great, but silence is greater.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Silence
A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.
—Thomas Carlyle
A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
—Thomas Carlyle
Tell a person they are brave and you help them become so.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Leaders, Leadership
For suffering and enduring there is no remedy, but striving and doing.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Suffering
Misery which, through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own helper and speak for itself.
—Thomas Carlyle
Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Music
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
If there be no enemy there’s no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Enemies, Fighting
The condition of the most passionate enthusiast is to be preferred over the individual who, because of the fear of making a mistake, won’t in the end affirm or deny anything.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Enthusiasm
Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Judgment
The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Fear
History of the world is the biography of the great man. And I said: The great man always act like a thunder. He storms the skies, while others are waiting to be stormed.
—Thomas Carlyle
Biography is the most universally pleasant and profitable of all reading.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Biography, Books
No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offense.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Life, Action
The end of man is action.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Inaction, Getting Going, Procrastination
The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Happiness
The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Courage, Bravery
Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
—Thomas Carlyle
By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Change
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
—Thomas Carlyle
Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Aspirations, Goals
The wealth of man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Wealth
All human things do require to have an ideal in them; to have some soul in them.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Ideals
The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius.
—Thomas Carlyle
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