A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge. Thomas Carlyle
A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner. Thomas Carlyle
A man perfects himself by work much more than by reading. Thomas Carlyle
A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun. 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
A poet without love were a physical and metaphysical impossibility. Thomas Carlyle
A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one. Thomas Carlyle
Affectation is the product of falsehood. Thomas Carlyle
All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught. Thomas Carlyle
All work, even cotton spinning, is noble; work is alone noble … A life of ease is not for any man, nor for any god. Thomas Carlyle
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. Thomas Carlyle
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. Thomas Carlyle
Clever men are good, but they are not the best. Thomas Carlyle
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one. Thomas Carlyle
Find in any country the Ablest Man that exists there; raise him to the supreme place, and loyally reverence him: you have a perfect government for that country; no ballot-box, parliamentary eloquence, voting, constitution-building, or other machinery whatsoever can improve it a whit. Thomas Carlyle
France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams. Thomas Carlyle
History is the essence of innumerable biographies. Thomas Carlyle
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. Thomas Carlyle
I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic. Thomas Carlyle
In every man’s writings, the character of the writer must lie recorded. Thomas Carlyle
In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment. Thomas Carlyle
In the long run every government is the exact symbol of its people, with their wisdom and unwisdom. Thomas Carlyle
Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man. Thomas Carlyle
Man is a tool-using animal…Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all. Thomas Carlyle
Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Thomas Carlyle
Manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with Necessity; begins even when we have surrendered to Necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to Necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in Necessity we are free. Thomas Carlyle
Music is well said to be the speech of angels. Thomas Carlyle
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men. Thomas Carlyle
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
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. Thomas Carlyle
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men. Thomas Carlyle
No violent extreme endures. Thomas Carlyle
Nothing builds self-esteem and self-confidence like accomplishment. Thomas Carlyle
Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die. Thomas Carlyle
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with; as if…any originality but our own could be expected to content us! Thomas Carlyle
Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. 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 man you honour, and I will know what kind of man you are, for it shows me what your ideal of manhood is and what kind of man you long to be. Thomas Carlyle
Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether. Thomas Carlyle
Teach a parrot the terms ‘supply and demand’ and you’ve got an economist. Thomas Carlyle
Tell a man he is brave, and you help him to become so. Thomas Carlyle
That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy. Thomas Carlyle
The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist. Thomas Carlyle
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong. Thomas Carlyle
The fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die. Thomas Carlyle
The great law of culture is: let each become all that he was created capable of being. Thomas Carlyle
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. Thomas Carlyle
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. He who wants [lacks] it, be his other gifts what they may, has only half a mind; an eye for what is above him, not for what is about him or below him. Thomas Carlyle
The stupendous Fourth Estate, whose wide world-embracing influences what eye can take in? Thomas Carlyle
The three great elements of modern civilization, gunpowder, printing, and the Protestant religion. Thomas Carlyle
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss. Thomas Carlyle
The true university of these days is a collection of books. Thomas Carlyle
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. Thomas Carlyle
The work we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully. Thomas Carlyle
There is no heroic poem in the world but is at bottom a biography, the life of a man; also, it may be said, there is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed. Thomas Carlyle
To a shower of gold most things are penetrable. Thomas Carlyle
Variety is the condition of harmony. Thomas Carlyle
Virtue is like health: the harmony of the whole man. Thomas Carlyle
Wonder is the basis of worship. Thomas Carlyle