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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Biography is the most universally pleasant and profitable of all reading.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Biography, Books
The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Fear
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
A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.
—Thomas Carlyle
Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
—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
Let a man try faithfully, manfully to be right, he will daily grow more and more right. It is at the bottom of the condition on which all men have to cultivate themselves.
—Thomas Carlyle
The heart always sees before than the head can see.
—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
A man’s honest, earnest opinion is the most precious of all he possesses: let him communicate this, if he is to communicate anything.
—Thomas Carlyle
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Difficulties, Obstacles, Decisions, Attitude, Adversity
There is endless merit in a man’s knowing when to have done.
—Thomas Carlyle
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Suffering, Life
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
All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Greatness
No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man’s life.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Heroes/Heroism
In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Knowledge
The dust of controversy is merely the falsehood flying off.
—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
Misery which, through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own helper and speak for itself.
—Thomas Carlyle
Tell a person they are brave and you help them become so.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
We are not altogether here to tolerate. We are here to resist, to control and vanquish withal.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Leadership
Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Aspirations, Goals
The fraction of life can be increased in value not so much by increasing your numerator as by lessening your denominator. Nay, unless my algebra deceives me, unity itself divided by zero will give infinity.
—Thomas Carlyle
Laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human species.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Laughter
Tell a man he is brave, and you help him to become so.
—Thomas Carlyle
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
—Thomas Carlyle
The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Ability, Excellence
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Critics, Criticism
Only the person of worth can recognize the worth in others.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Potential
One life – a little gleam of Time between two Eternities.
—Thomas Carlyle
There are depths in man that go to the lowest hell, and heights that reach the highest heaven, for are not both heaven and hell made out of him, everlasting miracle and mystery that he is.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Man
By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Change
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 wealth of man is the number of things which he loves and blesses, which he is loved and blessed by.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Wealth
There is often more spiritual force in a proverb than in whole philosophical systems.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Proverbs
Experience is the best of schoolmasters, only the school fees are heavy.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Experience
Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Duty, Doing
What you see, yet can not see over, is as good as infinite.
—Thomas Carlyle
All human things do require to have an ideal in them; to have some soul in them.
—Thomas Carlyle
Topics: Ideals
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