Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Carlyle
“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.”
“the mystic must be steadily told,—All that you say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,—universal signs, instead of these village symbols,—and we shall both be gainers. The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last nothing but an excess of the organ of language.”
“We so frequently feel that we are lacking in many qualities which another person apparently possesses; and then we furnish such a person with everything we oirselves possess and witj a certain idealistic complacemny in addition. And in this fashion a Happy Being is finished to perfection--the creature of our imagination.”
topics: infatuation
“Intellect is not speaking and logicising; it is seeing and ascertaining.”
“You may take my purse; but I cannot have my moral Self annihilated. The purse is any Highwayman's who might meet me with a loaded pistol: but the Self is mine and God my Maker's; it is not yours; and I will resist you to the death, and revolt against you ...”
“Man is a tool using animal. Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”
“Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man, but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.”
“God knows I often retire to my bed wishing (at times even hoping) that I might never wake up; and in the morning I open my eyes, see the sun once again, and am miserable.”
topics: depression
“For we are so constituted by nature, that we are ever prone to compare ourselves with others; and our happiness or misery depends very much on the objects and persons around us. On this account, nothing is more dangerous than solitude: there our imagination, always disposed to rise, taking a new flight on the wings of fancy, pictures to us a chain of beings of whom we seem the most inferior.”
“History of the world is the biography of the great man. And I said: The great man always act like a thunder. He storms the skies, while others are waiting to be stormed.”
topics: inspirational
“ليس لنا أن نتطلع إلى هدفٍ يلوح لنا باهتاً من بعد ، وإنما علينا أن ننجز ما بين أيدينا من عمل واضح بيِّن.”
“Does it ever give thee pause that men used to have a soul? Not by hearsay alone, or as a figure of speech, but as a thruth that they knew and acted upon. Verily it was another world then, but yet it is a pity we have lost the tidings of our souls. We shall have to go in search of them again or worse in all ways shall befall us.”
“كم يُشقينى أن يكون فى الدنيا أناس عاجزون عن تقدير الأشياء القليلة ذات القيمة الحقيقية فى الحياة.”
“There is not a moment but preys upon you,—and upon all around you, not a moment in which you do not yourself become a destroyer. The most innocent walk deprives of life thousands of poor insects: one step destroys the fabric of the industrious ant, and converts a little world into chaos. No: it is not the great and rare calamities of the world, the floods which sweep away whole villages, the earthquakes which swallow up our towns, that affect me. My heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature. Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself, and every object near it: so that, surrounded by earth and air, and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart; and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouring its own offspring.”
“جميع الاساتذة و العلماء متفقون في الرأي على أن الأطفال لا يدركون علة رغباتهم ولكن الكبار أيضا يجوبون الارض كالاطفال غير عالمين من أين جاءوا و لا ايان يذهبون و قلما توجههم الدوافع الثابتة فهم كلأطفال الصغار يسيرون وراء اغراء الحلوى ويرهبون العصا بيد أنه ما من أحد يعترف بهذا”
“كُلمى: أخرج أيها القمر ساطعًا من بين الغيوم، وانشري أضواءك الزاهية يا نجوم الليل، فعسى أن أهتدي إلى حيث يستريح حبيبي من متاعب الصيد، وقوسه المرخاة ملقاةٌ إلى جانبه، وكلابه اللاغبة راقدة من حوله، ولكن كُتب عليّ أن أبقى فريدةً على الصخرة المعشبة! إن السيل يزخر، وإن العاصفة تزأر، فلا استطيع أن أسمع صوت حبيبي احبس نفسك أيها الهواء لحظةً، وقف جريانك أيها السيل لمحةً، فعسى أن يرنّ صوتي في جوف الوادي فيسمعه حبيبي التائه! ولكن من هذان الراقدان هناك فوق سهول الخلنج؟ أهذا حبيبي؟ أذاك أخي؟ رُدّا عليّ الجواب يا خليليّ. ويلاه! إنهما لا يجيبان! واحرّ قلباه من حزنٍ يُذيبه وجوًى يُحرقه! لقد ماتا وبجانب كل منهما سيفه تجري على ماء حديده نار الدماء. أخي! لم قتلت حبيبي؟ حبيبي! لم قتلت أخي؟ لقد كنتما عزيزين عليّ. كان حبيبي أجمل الرجال في الجبل، وكان أخي أشجع الأبطال في المعركة. أجيبا النداء واسمعا الصوت يا خليليّ! ولكن هيهات! لقد أصابهما الخرس الأبدي فعيّا عن الجواب، وبردت أحشاؤهما فأصبحت كصيد الأرض! كلّموني يا أرواح الموتى من فوق الهضبة ومن أعلى الجبل، كلّموني فإني لا أرتاع ولا أفزع. خبروني أين تلتمسون الراحة؟ أفي الغيران والكهوف أوافيكم فألاقيكم؟ حنانيك يا رب! لا يحمل الهواء إلى صوتًا، ولا ترد العاصفة عليّ جوابًا! أنا وحدي في وسط الآلام، أنتظر الصباح باكيةً بدموع الغمام! احفروا القبر يا أصدقاء الموتى. ولا تهيلوا التراب قبل أن تأتي كُلمى! مضت حياتي مضي الحلم، وسبق الذين أحبهم فلم أتأخر عنهم. هنا أريد الثواء بجانب الأحبة على ضفة الجدول الهادر فوق الصخرة! حينما يضرب الليل بجرانه على التلعة، وتهب الريح رخاءً فوق الخلنج، تجدون روحي مع الهواء تبكي الأحبة وترثيهم. سيسمعني الصائد في كوخه فيفزعه صوتي، ولكنه لا يلبث أن يحبه، فإن صوتي سيكون عذبًا رخيمًا في رثاء الحبيبين. لقد كان كلاهما عزيزًا عليّ!”
“Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust, have fancied myself tempted and tormented of the Devil; for a Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only Diabolic Life, were more frightful: but in our age of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled down, you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To me the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even of Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable Steam-engine, rolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb.”
― Thomas Carlyle ,
from Sartor Resartus
“Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom.”
― Thomas Carlyle ,
from Sartor Resartus
topics: mycology
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Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era. He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.
Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was expected by his parents to become a preacher, but while at the University of Edinburgh, he lost his Christian faith. Calvinist values, however, remained with him throughout his life. This combination of a religious temperament with loss of faith in traditional Christianity made Carlyle's work appealing to many Victorians who were grappling with scientific and political changes that threatened the traditional social order.