Quotes from Thomas Carlyle

Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see further.

The scandalous bronze-lacquer age of hungry animalisms, spiritual impotences, and mendacities, will have to run its course, till the pit follow it.

Misery which, through long ages, had no spokesman, no helper, will now be its own helper and speak for itself.

History shows that the majority of people that have done anything great have passed their youth in seclusion.

Work alone is noble.

All true work is sacred.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

A fair day's wages for a fair day's work.

Know what thou canst work at, and work at it like a Hercules.

The modern majesty consists in work. What a man can do is his greatest ornament, and he always consults his dignity by doing it.

Work earnestly at anything, you will by degrees learn to work at all things.

Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.

There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual despair.

All work of man is as the swimmer's: a vast ocean threatens to devour him; if he front it not bravely, it will keep its word.

A man perfects himself by working.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

A background of wrath, which can be stirred up to the murderous infernal pitch, does lie in every man.

Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.

If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Speech is too often not the art of concealing thought, but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal.

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?

It is not a lucky word, this name impossible; no good comes of those who have it so often in their mouths.

Have a purpose in life, and having it, throw into your work such strength of mind and muscle as God has given you.