Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Historian, Essayist)

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.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Thomas Carlyle

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

The eye of the intellect sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing.
—Thomas Carlyle

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Criticism, Critics

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Class, Talent, Aristocracy, Society

Heroism is the divine relation which, in all times, unites a great man to other men.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Heroes, Heroism, Heroes/Heroism

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Silence

One life; a little gleam of time between two eternities; no second chance for us forever more.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Life

The king is the man who can.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Ability

Rest is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics; let your brain rest, you wearied and worried men of business; let your limbs rest, ye children of toil.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Rest

One is hardly sensible of fatigue while he marches to music.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Music

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Imagination

Prayer is and remains always a native and deepest impulse of the soul of man.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Prayer

What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.
—Thomas Carlyle

Labor is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred celestial life-essence breathed into him by Almighty God!
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Labor

Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
—Thomas Carlyle

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Focus, Concentration

Parliament will train you to talk; and above all things to hear, with patience, unlimited quantities of foolish talk.
—Thomas Carlyle

Misery which, through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own helper and speak for itself.
—Thomas Carlyle

It is not a lucky word, this same impossible; no good comes of those that have it so often in their mouth.
—Thomas Carlyle

Religion cannot pass away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky, but the stars are there, and will reappear.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Religion

By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Miscellaneous, Change

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Faith

I call the book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with the pen.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Bible

There are but two ways of paying debt—increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Debt, Economy

The past is all holy to us; the dead are all holy; even they that were wicked when alive.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: The Past, Past

Eternity looks grander and kinder if time grows meaner and more hostile.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Eternity

The stifled hum of midnight, when traffic has lain down to rest, and the chariot wheels of vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to halls, roofed in and lighted for her; and only vice and misery, to prowl, or to moan like night birds, are abroad.
—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
Topics: Government

It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.
—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

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