Quote

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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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
Never
Works
Perennial
Men
Alone
Forgetful
High
Earnestly
Actually
Sacredness
Hope
Idleness
Even
Perpetual
Work
Despair
Benighted
Always
Calling
Nobleness

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Clean undeniable right, clear undeniable might: either of these once ascertained puts an end to battle. All battle is a confused experiment to ascertain one and both of these.
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The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world.
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A man--be the heavens ever praised!--is sufficient for himself.
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The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist.
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How great a Possibility, how small a realized Result.
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The times are very bad. Very well, you are there to make them better.
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The Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past.
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Eternity looks grander and kinder if time grow meaner and more hostile.
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A man perfects himself by working. Foul jungles are cleared away, fair seed-fields rise instead, and stately cities and with the man himself first ceases to be a jungle, and foul unwholesome desert thereby. The man is now a man.
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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.
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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?
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Love is ever the beginning of knowledge as fire is of light.
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Be a pattern to others, and then all will go well for as a whole city is affected by the licentious passions and vices of great men, so it is likewise reformed by their moderation.
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The purpose of man is in action not thought.
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No good book, or good thing of any sort, shows its best face at first.
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I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
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The public is anold woman.Let her maunderand mumble.
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For man is not the creature and product of Mechanism but, in a far truer sense, its creator and producer.
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Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.
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Friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no longer exists. It is in reality no longer expected or recognized as a virtue among men.
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