Inspirational Quotes by Thomas Carlyle

“Our 'superior morality' is properly rather an 'inferior criminality' produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion.”

“Everywhere immeasurable Democracy rose monstrous, loud, blatant, inarticulate as the voice of Chaos.”

“This is the end of Prime Minister, Cardinal Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne. Flimsier mortal was seldom fated to do as weighty a mischief; to have a life as despicable-envied, an exit as frightful. Fired, as the phrase is, with ambition: blown, like a kindled rag, the sport of winds, not this way, not that way, but of all ways, straight towards such a powder-mine,—which he kindled! Let us pity the hapless Lomenie; and forgive him; and, as soon as possible, forget him.”

“one of the finest volumes of poetry that ever appeared in the world issued from the provincial press of Kilmarnock. It is hardly possible to imagine with what eager admiration and delight they were every where received. They possessed in an eminent degree all those qualities which invariably contribute to render any literary work quickly and permanently popular. They were written in a phraseology of which all the powers were universally felt, and which being at once antique, familiar, and now rarely written, was therefore fitted to serve all the dignified and picturesque uses of poetry, without making it unintelligible”

“Close-viewed, their industry and function is that of dressing gracefully and eating sumptuously. As for their debauchery and depravity, it is perhaps unexampled since the era of Tiberius and Commodus. (…) Such are the shepherds of the people: and now how fares it with the flock? With the flock, as is inevitable, it fares ill, and ever worse. They are not tended, they are only regularly shorn. They are sent for, to do statute-labour, to pay statute-taxes; to fatten battle-fields (named 'Bed of honour') with their bodies, in quarrels which are not theirs; their hand and toil is in every possession of man; but for themselves they have little or no possession. Untaught, uncomforted, unfed; to pine dully in thick obscuration, in squalid destitution and obstruction: this is the lot of the millions.”

“Multitudes now vied with each other in patronizing the rustic poet. Those who possessed at once true taste and ardent philanthropy were soon united in his praise; those who were disposed to favor any good thing belonging to Scotland, purely because it was Scottish, gladly joined the cry; while those who had hearts and understandings to be charmed without knowing why, when they saw their native customs, manners, and language, made the subjects and the materials of poesy, could not suppress that impulse of feeling which struggled to declare itself in favor of Burns.”

“How such Ideals do realize themselves; and grow, wondrously, from amid the incongruous ever-fluctuating chaos of the Actual: this is what World-History, if it teach any thing, has to teach us, How they grow; and, after long stormy growth, bloom out mature, supreme; then quickly (for the blossom is brief) fall into decay; sorrowfully dwindle; and crumble down, or rush down, noisily or noiselessly disappearing. The blossom is so brief; as of some centennial Cactus-flower, which after a century of waiting shines out for hours!”

“ما مصير الإنسان وما قدره, اللهم إلا أن يملأ كأس عذاباته ومعاناته, وأن يتجرع ما قدر له من المرارة؟ وإذا كانت هذه الكأس نفسها قد بدت مريرة للمسيح وهو في صورة البشر, فلماذا أتكلف كبرياء حمقاء وأنعت هذه الكأس بالعذوبة؟ لماذا ينبغي أن أخزى بالتراجع عند اللحظة الرهيبة عندما ترتجف روحي بين الوجود والعدم, وعندما تضيء ذكرى الماضي كوميض البرق, هاوية المستقبل المظلمة, فإذا بكل شيء ينحل حولي, وإذا العالم كله يتلاشى, أليس هذا هو صوت مخلوق تجاوز ضيقه وعناؤه كل حد, وخذلته ذاته, حتى بات على وشك الوثوب ليغوض في لجة الفناء الذي لا مناص منه, وهو ينادي متأوهًا من أعماقه ومتحسرًا على قوته المتداعية: إلهي, إلهي, لماذا تركتني؟”

“Now and then the fable of the horse recurs to me. Weary of liberty, he suffered himself to be saddled and bridled, and was ridden to death for his pains.”

“El que por complacer a los demás, contra su gusto y sin necesidad, se fatiga corriendo tras la fortuna, los honores u otra cosa cualquiera, es siempre un loco.”

“¿No es más bien [el mal humor] un despecho oculto, hijo de nuestra pequeñez; un descontento de nosotros mismos, mezclado siempre con alguna envidia, excitada por alguna loca vanidad? Vemos gente feliz que no nos debe su felicidad, y esto nos es insoportable.”

“fate is for imbeciles; all is possible to the resolved mind.”

“Every man is an impossibility until he is born; every thing impossible until we see a success.”

“Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.”

“What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?" my friend suggested,—"But these impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied, "They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil." No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.”

“Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to disclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no circumference to us. The”

“Trust thyself: [156] every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing on Chaos [157] and the Dark. What”

“Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.”

“He is a dull observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of magic, as well as of chemistry.”

“I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know.”