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
No sooner is your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men. Always there is a black spot in our sunshine: it is even as I said, the Shadow of Ourselves.
No sadder proof can be given of a person's own tiny stature, than their disbelief in great people.
Action hangs, as it were, ''dissolved'' in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.
As a first approximation, I define "belief" not as the object of believing (a dogma, a program, etc.) but as the subject's investment in a proposition, the act of saying it and considering it as true.
A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.
What we might call, by way of eminence, the Dismal Science
What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books.
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance,but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Our life is not really a mutual helpfulness; but rather, it's fair competition cloaked under due laws of war; it's a mutual hostility.
For one man that can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong
The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against unbelief.
The most fearful unbelief is unbelief in your self.
That monstrous tuberosity of civilized life, the capital of England.