Thomas Carlyle
1795–1881 · Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher
Topics: learning, creativity, life, software engineering
Man is a tool-using animal...Without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.
— Thomas CarlyleFire is the best of servents; but what a master!
— Thomas CarlyleThe weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something.
— Thomas CarlyleAgain, and again, we say, the great, the creative and enduring is ever a secret to itself; only the small, the barren and transient is otherwise.
— Thomas CarlyleThe true University of these days is a Collection of Books.
— Thomas CarlyleCertainly the Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all things man has devised.
— Thomas CarlyleAll that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of Books.
— Thomas CarlyleIf you are in a strait, a very good indication as to choice—perhaps the best you could get—is a book you have a great curiosity about. You are then in the readiest and best of all possible conditions to improve by that book.
— Thomas CarlyleThe All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To do.
— Thomas CarlyleEvery noble work is at first impossible.
— Thomas CarlyleOur grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
— Thomas CarlyleIn books lies the soul of the whole Past Time; the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
— Thomas CarlyleThe fine arts once divorcing themselves from truth are quite certain to fall mad, if they do not die.
— Thomas CarlyleA man perfects himself by work much more than by reading.
— Thomas CarlyleThe work we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
— Thomas CarlyleBlessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
— Thomas Carlyle[I]n the learned professions as in the unlearned, and in human things throughout, in every place and in every time, the true function of intellect is not that of talking, but of understanding and discerning with a view to performing!
— Thomas CarlyleCan the man say, Fiat lux, Let there be light; and out of chaos make a world? Precisely as there is light in himself, will he accomplish this.
— Thomas CarlyleHe that works and does some Poem, not he that merely says one, is worthy of the name of Poet.
— Thomas CarlyleOur true Deity is Mechanism. It has subdued external Nature for us, and we think it will do all other things. We are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to conquer Heaven also.
— Thomas Carlyle