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Thomas Carlyle Quotes


I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

I don't like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.

I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am.

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.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?

If there be no enemy there's no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.

If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded.

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

Imperfection clings to a person, and if they wait till they are brushed off entirely, they would spin for ever on their axis, advancing nowhere.

In books lies the soul of the whole past time.

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man.

It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

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