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Thomas Carlyle Quotes
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Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, translator, historian, and teacher. Considered one of the most important social commentators of his time, he presented many lectures during his lifetime with certain acclaim in the Victorian era. One of those conferences resulted in his famous work On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History where he explains that the key role in history lies in the actions of the "Great Man", claiming that "History is nothing but the biography of the Great Man".

A respected historian, his 1837 book The French Revolution: A History was the inspiration for Charles Dickens' 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities, and remains popular today. Carlyle's 1836 Sartor Resartus is a notable philosophical novel.

A great polemicist, Carlyle coined the term "the dismal science" for economics. He also wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, and his Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question remains controversial. Once a Christian, Carlyle lost his faith while attending the University of Edinburgh, later adopting a form of deism.

In mathematics, he is known for the Carlyle circle, a method used in quadratic equations and for developing ruler-and-compass constructions of regular polygons.

✵ 4. December 1795 – 5. February 1881   •   Other names Томас Карлайл
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Thomas Carlyle Quotes

“They fled precipitately, some of them with what we may call an exquisite ignominy,—in terror of the treadmill or worse.”

Thomas Carlyle book Latter-Day Pamphlets

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)

“The sincere alone can recognize sincerity. Not a Hero only is needed, but a world fit for him;”

Thomas Carlyle

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

World , Sincerity

“Such laughter, like sunshine on the deep sea, is very beautiful to me.”

Thomas Carlyle

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Poet

Beauty , Sea , Laughter

“Speech is silvern, Silence is golden; or, as I might rather express it: speech is of time, silence is of eternity.”

Thomas Carlyle book Sartor Resartus

As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden
Bk. III, ch. 3.
1830s, Sartor Resartus (1833–1834)

Silence , Time

“By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.”

Thomas Carlyle
Home , Hate , Nature , Change

“I warmly second the advice of the wisest of men—"Don't be ambitious; don't be at all too desirous to success; be loyal and modest."”

Thomas Carlyle

Cut down the proud towering thoughts that you get into you, or see they be pure as well as high. There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California would be, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now.
1860s, On The Choice Of Books (1866)

Success , Men

“Burns's gifts, expressed in conversation, are the theme of all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts: from the gracefulest utterances of courtesy, to the highest fire of passionate speech; loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic emphasis, clear piercing insight; all was in him.”

Thomas Carlyle

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters

Passion

“Till we know that, what is all our knowledge; how shall we even so much as "detect?”

Thomas Carlyle

For the vulpine sharpness, which considers itself to be knowledge, and "detects" in that fashion, is far mistaken. Dupes indeed are many: but, of all dupes, there is none so fatally situated as he who lives in undue terror of being duped.
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

Knowledge

“America's battle is yet to fight; and we, sorrowful though nothing doubting, will wish her strength for it.”

Thomas Carlyle book Latter-Day Pamphlets

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)

Fight

“England, as I persuade myself, still contains in it many kings; possesses, as old Rome did, many men not needing "election" to command, but eternally elected for it by the Maker Himself. England's one hope is in these, just now. They are among the silent, I believe; mostly far away from platforms and public palaverings; not speaking forth the image of their nobleness in transitory words, but imprinting it, each on his own little section of the world, in silent facts, in modest valiant actions, that will endure forevermore. They must sit silent no longer. They are summoned to assert themselves; to act forth, and articulately vindicate, in the teeth of howling multitudes, of a world too justly maddened into all manner of delirious clamors, what of wisdom they derive from God.”

Thomas Carlyle book Latter-Day Pamphlets

1850s, Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), The Present Time (February 1, 1850)

Wisdom , Men , God , World