Quote

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Thomas Carlyle

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Thomas Carlyle
Age: 85 †
Born: 1795
Born: December 4
Died: 1881
Died: February 5
Essayist
Historian
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Mathematician
Novelist
Philosopher
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Philosopher of Chelsea
Facts
God
Reality
Devil
Seems
Theory
Great
Grow
Printed
Thing
Least
Honour
Grows
Sentence
Less
Sentences
Fact
Daily

More quotes by Thomas Carlyle

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True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Thomas Carlyle
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Not on morality, but on cookery, let us build our stronghold: there brandishing our frying-pan, as censer, let us offer sweet incense to the Devil, and live at ease on the fat things he has provided for his elect!
Thomas Carlyle
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Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.
Thomas Carlyle
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Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed is painful yet ever needful and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope.
Thomas Carlyle
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The insignificant, the empty, is usually the loud and after the manner of a drum, is louder even because of its emptiness.
Thomas Carlyle
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The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.
Thomas Carlyle
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Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.
Thomas Carlyle
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A background of wrath, which can be stirred up to the murderous infernal pitch, does lie in every man.
Thomas Carlyle
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A star is beautiful it affords pleasure, not from what it is to do, or to give, but simply by being what it is. It befits the heavens it has congruity with the mighty space in which it dwells. It has repose no force disturbs its eternal peace. It has freedom no obstruction lies between it and infinity.
Thomas Carlyle
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There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.
Thomas Carlyle
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In a different time, in a different place, it is always some other side of our common human nature that has been developing itself. The actual truth is the sum of all these.
Thomas Carlyle
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No violent extreme endures.
Thomas Carlyle
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Men do less than they ought, unless they do all they can.
Thomas Carlyle
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Wonderful Force of Public Opinion! We must act and walk in all points as it prescribes follow the traffic it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree of influence it expects of us, or we shall be lightly esteemed certain mouthfuls of articulate wind will be blown at us, and this what mortal courage can front?
Thomas Carlyle
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In every object there is inexhaustible meaning the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.
Thomas Carlyle
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As there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans (i.e. Muslim), I mean to say all the good of him I justly can.
Thomas Carlyle
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Great is wisdom infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated it is the highest achievement of man.
Thomas Carlyle
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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.
Thomas Carlyle
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Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
Thomas Carlyle
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The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain 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 a moment gaze into that!
Thomas Carlyle