Quotes from Thomas Carlyle

He that will not work according to his faculty, let him perish according to his necessity: there is no law juster than that.

The glory of a workman, still more of a master workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the honor of a soldier, dearer to him than life.

Properly speaking, all true work is religion.

Thought will not work except in silence.

On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it; not in sorrows or contradictions to yield, but to push on towards the goal.

Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories in ever done.

A fair day's wage for a fair day's work": it is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governing. It is the everlasting right of man.

All work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew.

A man's perfection is his work.

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

Rest is a fine medicine. Let your stomachs rest, ye dyspeptics; let your brain rest, you wearied and worried people of business; let your limbs rest, ye children of toil!

The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows. The greatest of faults, I should say is to be conscious of none.

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

All work is seed sown. It grows and spreads and sows itself anew.

He that can work is a born king of something.

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all they can.

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

What we might call, by way of eminence, the Dismal Science

Terror itself, when once grown transcendental, becomes a kind of courage; as frost sufficiently intense, according to the poet Milton, will burn.

Quackery gives birth to nothing; gives death to all things.

Silence, the great Empire of Silence: higher than all stars; deeper than the Kingdom of Death! It alone is great; all else is small.

Rest is for the dead.

No violent extreme endures.

They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of man.