Quotes by "Thomas Carlyle"

The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak becomes a steppingstone in the path of the strong.

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

It is the heart always that sees before the head can see.

Of all paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him.

Give me a man who sings at his work.

Experience is the best of schoolmasters, only the school-fees are heavy.

The end of man is action.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose. ... Get your happiness out of your work or you will never know what real happiness is. ... Even in the meanest sorts of labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work.

History, a distillation of rumor

It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.

The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.

Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge as fire is of light.

One life - a little gleam of Time between two Eternities.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the Infinite and lets us for moments gaze into that!

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

Love is not altogether a delirium, yet it has many points in common therewith.