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One monster there is in the world, the idle man.

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
World
Monster
Idle
Monsters
Men

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The whole past is the procession of the present.
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Force, force, everywhere force we ourselves a mysterious force in the centre of that. There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but has Force in it: how else could it rot? [As used in his time, by the word force, Carlyle means energy.]
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Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.
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What, in the devil's name, is the use of respectability, with never so many gigs and silver spoons, if thou inwardly art the pitifulness of all men?
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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.
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Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.
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Rightly viewed no meanest object is insignificant all objects are as windows through which the philosophic eye looks into infinitude itself.
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When new turns of behavior cease to appear in the life of the individual, its behavior ceases to be intelligent.
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The sincere alone can recognize sincerity.
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Neither in tailoring nor in legislating does man proceed by mere accident.
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One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or NO.
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I came hither [Craigenputtoch] solely with the design to simplify my way of life and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself.
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Terror itself, when once grown transcendental, becomes a kind of courage as frost sufficiently intense, according to the poet Milton, will burn.
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It is not honest inquiry that makes anarchy but it is error, insincerity, half belief and untruth that make it.
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Speech is great, but silence is greater.
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In the poorest cottage are Books: is one Book, wherein for several thousands of years the spirit of man has found light, and nourishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is Deepest in him.
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A man ought to inquire and find out what he really and truly has an appetite for what suits his constitution and that, doctors tell him, is the very thing he ought to have in general. And so with books.
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A pygmy standing on the outward crust of this small planet, his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite, and there alone finds rest.
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At worst, is not this an unjust world, full of nothing but beasts of prey, four-footed or two-footed?
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He who talks much about virtue in the abstract, begins to be suspected it is shrewdly guessed that where there is great preaching there will be little almsgiving.
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