Quote

Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property, of a man like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given.

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
Light
Test
Give
Tests
Little
Property
Nothing
Fame
Like
Sure
Show
Probability
Understand
Accident
Given
Merit

More quotes by Thomas Carlyle

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The great silent man! Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world,--words with little meaning, actions with little worth,--one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence.
Thomas Carlyle
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The great law of culture is, Let each become all that he was created capable of being expand, if possible, to his full growth resisting all impediments, casting off all foreign, especially all noxious adhesions, and show himself at length in his own shape and stature be these what they may.
Thomas Carlyle
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We call that fire of the black thunder-cloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but what is it? What made it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it?
Thomas Carlyle
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The highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one.
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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Speech is great, but silence is greater.
Thomas Carlyle
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The vulgarity of inanimate things requires time to get accustomed to but living, breathing, bustling, plotting, planning, human vulgarity is a species of moral ipecacuanha, enough to destroy any comfort.
Thomas Carlyle
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Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business: and gives in the long run a net result of zero.
Thomas Carlyle
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What I loved in the man was his health, his unity with himself all people and all things seemed to find their quite peaceable adjustment with him, not a proud domineering one, as after doubtful contest, but a spontaneous-looking peaceable, even humble one.
Thomas Carlyle
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Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.
Thomas Carlyle
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The mystical bond of brotherhood makes all men brothers.
Thomas Carlyle
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There are good and bad times, but our mood changes more often than our fortune.
Thomas Carlyle
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Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a crown of thorns.
Thomas Carlyle
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Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.
Thomas Carlyle
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I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
Thomas Carlyle
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No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
Thomas Carlyle
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Providence has given to the French the empire of the land, to the English that of the sea, to the Germans that of--the air!
Thomas Carlyle
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Every day that is born into the world comes like a burst of music and rings the whole day through, and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.
Thomas Carlyle
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When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.
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