Continued Insights from Thomas Carlyle

"Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can"

"Let each become all that he was created capable of being"

"If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else"

"I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am"

"Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries"

"A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind"

"Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects"

"Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, - till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another"

"Science must have originated in the feeling that something was wrong"

"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad"

"No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve"

"Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope"

"Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world"

"Love is the only game that is not called on account of darkness"

"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"

"If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt"

"If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded"

"Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do"

"When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent"

"What you see, but can't see over is as good as infinite"

"The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest"

"Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've got an economist"

"Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether"

"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"

"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand"

"One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO"

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

"No violent extreme endures"

"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"

"The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion"

"The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better"

"Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are"

"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"

"Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacle s, discouragement s, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak"

"No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence"

"I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil"

"I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance"

"The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity"

"Work alone is noble"

"No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor"

"Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith"

"Endurance is patience concentrated"

"Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone"

"Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer"

"Clever men are good, but they are not the best"

"Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will"

"Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct"

"All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books"

"A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus"

"The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green"

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Inspiring Quotes by Thomas Carlyle - Page 2