Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlylewas a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, 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...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth4 December 1795
The dead are all holy, even they that were base and wicked while alive. Their baseness and wickedness was not they, was but the heavy and unmanageable environment that lay round them.
What is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?
History is the new poetry.
What is all knowledge except recorded experience, and a product of history?
There can be no acting or doing of any kind till it be recognized that there is a thing to be done; the thing once recognized, doing in a thousand shapes becomes possible.
Poetry, therefore, we will call Musical Thought.
A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the almighty have lived by and died by?...
The actual well seen is ideal.
Nine-tenths of the miseries and vices of mankind proceed from idleness.
Let him who wants to move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself.
Wealth of a man is the number of things which he loves and blesses which he is loved and blessed by.
Variety is the condition of harmony.
Over the times thou hast no power. . . . Solely over one man thou hast quite absolute power. Him redeem and make honest.
It is meritorious to insist on forms; religion and all else naturally clothes itself in forms. Everywhere the formed world is the only habitable one.