The errors of a wise man are literally more instructive than the truths of a fool. The wise man travels in lofty, far-seeing regions; the fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes; retracing the footsteps of the former, to discover where he diviated, whole provinces of the universe are laid open to us; in the path of the latter, granting even that he has not deviated at all, little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and two hedges.
Thomas CarlyleThe 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 CarlyleA judicious man looks at Statistics, not to "get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted 'on him".
Thomas CarlyleA thinking man is the worst enemy the Prince of Darkness can have; every time such an one announces himself, I doubt not there runs a shudder through the nether empire; and new emissaries are trained with new tactics, to, if possible, entrap and hoodwink and handcuff him.
Thomas CarlyleWhen I gaze into the stars, they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces, like eyes glistening with tears over the little lot of man. Thousands of generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up by time, and there remains no record of them any more. Yet Arcturus and Orion, Sirius and Pleiades, are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar!
Thomas CarlyleIf time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.
Thomas CarlyleNo sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
Thomas CarlyleMen worship the shows of great men; the most disbelieve that there is any reality of great men to worship.
Thomas CarlyleLong stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.
Thomas CarlyleGreat is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated; it is the highest achievement of man.
Thomas CarlyleConsidering the multitude of mortals that handle the pen in these days, and can mostly spell, and write without glaring violations of grammar, the question naturally arises: How is it, then, that no work proceeds from them, bearing any stamp of authenticity and permanence; of worth for more than one day?
Thomas CarlyleThere is but one thing without honor, smitten with eternal barrenness, inability to do or to be,-insincerity, unbelief.
Thomas CarlyleA 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.
Thomas CarlyleOne is weary of hearing about the omnipotence of money. I will say rather that, for a genuine man, it is not evil to be poor.
Thomas CarlyleA greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the almighty have lived by and died by?
Thomas CarlyleAll deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!
Thomas CarlyleWe have our little theory on all human and divine things. Poetry, the workings of genius itself, which, in all times, with one or another meaning, has been called Inspiration, and held to be mysterious and inscrutable, is no longer without its scientific exposition. The building of the lofty rhyme is like any other masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of its rise, height, decline and fall -- which latter, it would seem, is now near, among all people.
Thomas CarlyleAll true work is sacred. In all true work, were it but true hand work, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in Heaven.
Thomas CarlyleIf 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.
Thomas CarlyleI too acknowledge the all-out omnipotence of early culture and nature; hereby we have either a doddered dwarf-bush, or a high-towering, wide-shadowing tree! either a sick yellow cabbage, or an edible luxuriant green one. Of a truth, it is the duty of all men, especially of all philosophers, to note down with accuracy the characteristic circumstances of their education,--what furthered, what hindered, what in any way modified it.
Thomas CarlyleArmed Soldier, terrible as Death, relentless as Doom; doing God's judgement on the Enemies of God. It is a phenomenon not of joyful nature; no, but of awful, to be looked at with pious terror and awe.
Thomas CarlyleWho is it that loves me and will love me forever with an affection which no chance, no misery, no crime of mine can do away? It is you, my mother.
Thomas CarlyleWell might the ancients make silence a god; for it is the element of all godhood, infinitude, or transcendental greatness,--at once the source and the ocean wherein all such begins and ends.
Thomas CarlyleOnce the mind has been expanded by a big idea, it will never go back to its original state.
Thomas CarlyleFor man is not the creature and product of Mechanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer.
Thomas CarlyleProfessors of the Dismal Science, I perceive the length of your tether is now pretty well run; and I must request you to talk a little lower in the future.
Thomas CarlyleTo the mean eye all things are trivial, as certainly as to the jaundiced they are yellow.
Thomas Carlyle