Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! How, as a free-flowing channel, dug and torn by noble force through the sour mudswamp of one's existence, like an ever-deepening river there, it runs and flows
Thomas CarlyleI 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.
Thomas CarlylePermanence, 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.
Thomas CarlyleGood Christian people, here lies for you an inestimable loan; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness, employ it: with high recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be required back.
Thomas CarlyleIn no time whatever can small critics entirely eradicate out of living men's hearts a certain altogether peculiar collar reverence for Great Men--genuine admiration, loyalty, adora-tion.
Thomas CarlyleThe Great Man's sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of insincerity; for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for one day? No, the Great Man does not boast himself sincere, far from that; perhaps does not ask himself if he is so: I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on himself; he cannot help being sincere!
Thomas CarlyleThe lightning spark of thought generated in the solitary mind awakens its likeness in another mind.
Thomas CarlyleA fundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man . . . A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no right man.
Thomas CarlyleUniversal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.
Thomas CarlyleIf a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.
Thomas CarlyleSocial Science, is not a 'gay science' but rueful, which finds the secret of this universe in 'supply and demand' and reduces the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone. Not a 'gay science', no, a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing one; what we might call, the dismal science
Thomas CarlyleOn the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it; not in sorrows or contradictions to yield, but to push on towards the goal.
Thomas CarlyleDinners are defined as 'the ultimate act of communion;' men that can have communion in nothing else, can sympathetically eat together, can still rise into some glow of brotherhood over food and wine.
Thomas CarlyleNo great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
Thomas CarlyleIf you are looking at data over and over you better be taking away valuable insight every time. If you are constantly looking at data that isn't leading to strategic action stop wasting your time and look for more Actionable Analytics.
Thomas CarlyleEvery day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.
Thomas CarlyleNo country can find eternal peace and comfort where the vote of Judas Iscariot is as good as the vote of the Saviour of mankind.
Thomas CarlyleFoolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.
Thomas CarlyleDemocracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.
Thomas CarlyleLet one who wants to move and convince others, first be convinced and moved themselves. If a person speaks with genuine earnestness the thoughts, the emotion and the actual condition of their own heart, others will listen because we all are knit together by the tie of sympathy.
Thomas CarlyleHave not I myself known five hundred living soldiers sabred into crows' meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which they call their flag; which had you sold it at any market-cross, would not have brought above three groschen?
Thomas CarlyleThere are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.
Thomas CarlyleI know so little about any history. How little do I know even about the history of myself.
Thomas CarlyleThe only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.
Thomas CarlyleLearn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in,--a real, not an imaginary,--and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in.
Thomas CarlylePoverty, we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made barriers, which if they do mournfully gall and hamper, do at least prescribe for him, and force on him, a sort of course and goal; a safe and beaten, though a circuitous, course. A great part of his guidance is secure against fatal error, is withdrawn from his control. The rich, again, has his whole life to guide, without goal or barrier, save of his own choosing, and, tempted, is too likely to guide it ill.
Thomas CarlyleMan is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.
Thomas CarlyleA lie should be trampled on and extinguished wherever found. I am for fumigating the atmosphere when I suspect that falsehood, like pestilence, breathes around me.
Thomas Carlyle