The quotations of

Thomas Carlyle

Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher

1795–1881

43 quotes, most often on Character, Reading and Knowledge.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
Often credited to Abraham Lincoln
- Virtue
A lie cannot live.
Often credited to Martin Luther King Jr.
- Truth & Lies
When the oak is felled the forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown silently by an unnoticed breeze.
That there should one Man die ignorant who had capacity for Knowledge, this I call a tragedy.
Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Bk. III, ch. 4.
- Education
- Knowledge
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), Bk. I, ch. 4.
- Laughter
A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.
Richter (1827).
- Life & Death
- Writing
Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge as fire is of light.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855)
- Knowledge
- Love
His religion at best is an anxious wish, — like that of Rabelais, a great Perhaps.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), Burns
- Religion
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
The Opera (1852).
- Music
All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books.
The Hero as Man of Letters
- Reading
Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Signs of the Times (1829)
- Responsibility
- Work
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.
Sir Walter Scott (1838)
- Poetry
Clever men are good, but they are not the best.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827–1855), Goethe.
- Character
- Intelligence
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.
The Hero as Divinity
- Character
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.
Sir Walter Scott (1838)
- Talking

Most quoted

People A to Z

C. S. Lewis1898–1963151 quotes

Mark Twain1835–1910151 quotes

Benjamin Franklin1706–179098 quotes

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–196884 quotes

Albert Einstein1879–195595 quotes

Dave Barryborn 1947100 quotes