Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Carlyle

“My grandmother used to tell us a story of a mountain of loadstone. When any vessels came near it, they were instantly deprived of their ironwork: the nails flew to the mountain, and the unhappy crew perished amidst the disjointed planks.”

“الكلمات أفعال أيضاً، والأفعال نوع من الكلمات.”

“I have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he is doing today.”

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. [172]”

“واأسفاه! إن الإنسان لسريع الزوال: يُمحى ويزول حتى من المكان الوحيد الذي يتأكد فيه وجوده وتثمر فيه عواطفه وعهوده: يزول من ذاكرة أحبابه وقلوب أعزائه، وذلك - واحسرتاه - يحدث في أسرع ما يكون.”

“أيها الأب الذي لا أعرفه، والإله الذي كان يشغل جوانب قلبي في ما مضى، ثم زوى الآن وجهه عني، ادعُني إليك وكلمني! لا تلزم جانب الصمت، فإن نفسي التوّاقة الصّادية تشتهي أن تسمعك. أيّ والدٍ يتحمله الغضب إذا رأى ولده يترامى بغتةً بين حضنيه وهو يصيح: "هأنذا يا أبي قد عدت إليك! فلا تحلّ غضبك عليّ إذا لم أرد أن أتم الرحلة التي حددتها لي إرادتك. لقد وجدت العالم في كل مكانٍ هو العالم: عناء وعمل وجزاء ولذة. وماذا يجدي علي كل ذلك؟ أنا لا أكون سعيدًا إلا حيث أنت، ولا أريد أن آلم وألذّ إلا حيث أنت." فهل ترضى أيها الأب السماوي الرحيم أن تذود عن بابك الطفل المتوسل الضارع؟”

“بؤساً لأولئك الذين يتخذون من سلطانهم على بعض القلوب سبيلاً إلى حرمانها تلك المسرات البسيطة التي تُبعث فيها من تلقاء نفسها!! فلا التحف والهدايا،ولا الظرف والملاطفة،بمعوضة عن تلك اللحظة التي سعدنا فيها بأنفسنا فسممها ذلك الخائن بحقده وغيرته”

“The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”

“Music is well said to be the speech of angels.”

“But figure his thought, when Death is now clutching at his own heart-strings, unlooked for, inexorable! Yes, poor Louis, Death has found thee. No palace walls or life-guards, gorgeous tapestries or gilt buckram of stiffest ceremonial could keep him out; but he is here, here at thy very life-breath, and will extinguish it. Thou, whose whole existence hitherto was a chimera and scenic show, at length becomest a reality: sumptuous Versailles bursts asunder, like a dream, into void Immensity; Time is done, and all the scaffolding of Time falls wrecked with hideous clangour round thy soul: the pale Kingdoms yawn open; there must thou enter, naked, all unking'd, and await what is appointed thee! Unhappy man, there as thou turnest, in dull agony, on thy bed of weariness, what a thought is thine! Purgatory and Hell-fire, now all-too possible, in the prospect; in the retrospect,--alas, what thing didst thou do that were not better undone; what mortal didst thou generously help; what sorrow hadst thou mercy on? Do the 'five hundred thousand' ghosts, who sank shamefully on so many battle-fields from Rossbach to Quebec, that thy Harlot might take revenge for an epigram,--crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul Harem; the curses of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters? Miserable man! thou 'hast done evil as thou couldst:' thy whole existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of Nature; the use and meaning of thee not yet known. Wert thou a fabulous Griffin, devouring the works of men; daily dragging virgins to thy cave;--clad also in scales that no spear would pierce: no spear but Death's? A Griffin not fabulous but real! Frightful, O Louis, seem these moments for thee.--We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner's death-bed.”

“Keine zauberwirkende Rune ist wunderbarer als ein Buch. Bücher sind das auserlesene Besitztum der Menschen.”

“OH, Heaven,it is mysterious,it is awful to consider that we not only carry a future Ghost within us. but are,in very deed, GHOSTS !”

“know a Work of Art from a Daub of Artifice)”

“A Dandy is a clothes-wearing Man, a Man whose trade, office and existence consists in the wearing of clothes.”

“Wondrous indeed is the virtue of a true Book.”

“A stammering man is never a worthless one. Physiology can tell you why. It is an excess of delicacy, excess of sensibility to the presence of his fellow creature, that makes him stammer.”

“To men in their sleep there is nothing granted in this world.”

“It is a mathematical fact that the casting of this pebble from my hand alters the centre of gravity of the universe.”

“Endurance is patience concentrated.”

“Unqualified activity, of whatever kind, leads at last to bankruptcy.”