Thomas Carlyle - Past and Present, 1843

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
Thomas Carlyle
A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
Thomas Carlyle
Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.
Thomas Carlyle
It is not a lucky word, this name "impossible"; no good comes of those who have it so often in their mouths.
Thomas Carlyle - Heroes and Hero Worship, 1840
No sadder proof can be given by man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
Thomas Carlyle
That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.
Thomas Carlyle
The true university of these days is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laugther, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Thomas Carlyle
The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity.
Thomas Carlyle
Happy are the people whose annals are blank in history books
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
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.
Thomas Carlyle
The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life, and, having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you.
Thomas Carlyle
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
Thomas Carlyle
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
Thomas Carlyle
Enjoy things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
Thomas Carlyle
Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
Thomas Carlyle
Foolish 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 Carlyle
If you are ever in doubt as to whether or not you should kiss a pretty girl, give her the benefit of the doubt.
Thomas Carlyle - Proflies in Courage by: John F. Kennedy
The Courage that we all prize and seek is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
Thomas Carlyle
Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.
Thomas Carlyle
If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.
Thomas Carlyle
Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one rascal less in the world.
Thomas Carlyle
France was a long despotism tempered by epigrams.
Thomas Carlyle
Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.
Thomas Carlyle
A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.
Thomas Carlyle
What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
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
The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
Thomas Carlyle
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Thomas Carlyle
When words leave off, music begins.
Thomas Carlyle
In idleness there is a perpetual despair.

- Thomas Carlyle - Past and Present, 1843