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To Me The Universe Was All Void Of Life, Of Purpose, Of Volition, Even Of Hostility; It Was One Huge, Dead, Immeasurable Steam-engine, Rolling On, In Its Dead Indifference, To Grind Me Limb From Limb. Oh Vast Gloomy, Solitary Golgotha, And Mill Of Death! Why Was The Living Banished Thither Companionless, Conscious? Why, If There Is No Devil; Nay, Unless The Devil Is Your God?

-Thomas Carlyle

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To Me The Universe

Thomas Carlyle

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To Me The Universe Was All Void Of Life, Of Purpose, Of Volition, Even Of Hostility; It Was One Huge, Dead, Immeasurable Steam-engine, Rolling On, In Its Dead Indifference, To Grind Me Limb From Limb. Oh Vast Gloomy, Solitary Golgotha, And Mill Of Death! Why Was The Living Banished Thither Companionless, Conscious? Why, If There Is No Devil; Nay, Unless The Devil Is Your God?

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The Purpose Of Man Is In Action Not Thought.

The First Duty Of Man Is To Conquer Fear; He Must Get Rid Of It, He Cannot Act Till Then.

A Man Ought To Inquire And Find Out What He Really And Truly Has An Appetite For; What Suits His Constitution; And That, Doctors Tell Him, Is The Very Thing He Ought To Have In General. And So With Books.

A Man Lives By Believing Something.

Action Hangs, As It Were, Dissolved In Speech, In Thoughts Whereof Speech Is The Shadow; And Precipitates Itself Therefrom. The Kind Of Speech In A Man Betokens The Kind Of Action You Will Get From Him.

Do The Duty Which Lies Nearest To You, The Second Duty Will Then Become Clearer.

The Latest Gospel In This World Is, Know Thy Work And Do It.

Creation Is Great, And Cannot Be Understood.

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.

The Eternal Stars Shine Out Again, So Soon As It Is Dark Enough.

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The Courage We Desire And Prize Is Not The Courage To Die Decently, But To Live Manfully.

A Force As Of Madness In The Hands Of Reason Has Done All That Was Ever Done In The World.

No Sooner Does A Great Man Depart, And Leave His Character As Public Property, Than A Crowd Of Little Men Rushes Towards It. There They Are Gathered Together, Blinking Up To It With Such Vision As They Have, Scanning It From Afar, Hovering Round It This Way And That, Each Cunningly Endeavoring, By All Arts, To Catch Some Reflex Of It In The Little Mirror Of Himself.

This Is The Eternal Law Of Nature For A Man, My Beneficent Exeter-hall Friends; This, That He Shall Be Permitted, Encouraged, And If Need Be, Compelled To Do What Work The Maker Of Him Has Intended By The Making Of Him For This World! Not That He Should Eat Pumpkin With Never Such Felicity In The West India Islands Is, Or Can Be, The Blessedness Of Our Black Friend; But That He Should Do Useful Work There, According As The Gifts Have Been Bestowed On Him For That.

The Merit Of Originality Is Not Novelty; It Is Sincerity.

The Greatest Security Against Sin Is To Be Shocked At Its Presence.

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Freedom Is The One Purport, Wisely Aimed At, Or Unwisely, Of All Man's Struggles, Toilings And Sufferings, In This Earth.

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It Is The First Of All Problems For A Man To Find Out What Kind Of Work He Is To Do In This Universe.

Egotism Is The Source And Summary Of All Faults And Miseries.

It Is Not A Lucky Word, This Name Impossible; No Good Comes Of Those Who Have It So Often In Their Mouths.

Not What I Have, But What I Do Is My Kingdom.

In Private Life I Never Knew Anyone Interfere With Other People's Disputes But He Heartily Repented Of It.

And Man's Little Life Has Duties That Are Great, That Are Alone Great, And Go Up To Heaven And Down To Hell.

I Never Heard Tell Of Any Clever Man That Came Of Entirely Stupid People.

We Are Not Altogether Here To Tolerate. We Are Here To Resist, To Control And Vanquish Withal.

We Have Profoundly Forgotten Everywhere That Cash-payment Is Not The Sole Relation Of Human Beings.

Not On Morality, But On Cookery, Let Us Build Our Stronghold: There Brandishing Our Frying-pan, As Censer, Let Us Offer Sweet Incense To The Devil, And Live At Ease On The Fat Things He Has Provided For His Elect!

The Aristocracy Of Feudal Parchment Has Passed Away With A Mighty Rushing, And Now, By A Natural Course, We Arrive At Aristocracy Of The Money-bag.

If Those Gentlemen Would Let Me Alone I Should Be Much Obliged To Them. I Would Say, As Shakespeare Would Say... Sweet Friend, For Jesus Sake Forbear.

Thought Once Awakened Does Not Again Slumber; Unfolds Itself Into A System Of Thought; Grows, In Man After Man, Generation After Generation, - Till Its Full Stature Is Reached, And Such System Of Thought Can Grow No Farther, But Must Give Place To Another.

History Is The Essence Of Innumerable Biographies.

No Person Is Important Enough To Make Me Angry.

To The Mean Eye All Things Are Trivial, As Certainly As To The Jaundiced They Are Yellow.

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Alas! We Know That Ideals Can Never Be Completely Embodied In Practice. Ideals Must Ever Lie A Great Way Off--and We Will Thankfully Content Ourselves With Any Not Intolerable Approximation Thereto! Let No Man, As Schiller Says, Too Querulously "measure By A Scale Of Perfection The Meager Product Of Reality" In This Poor World Of Ours.

Man's Earthly Interests,'are All Hooked And Buttoned Together, And Held Up, By Clothes.

The Stifled Hum Of Midnight, When Traffic Has Lain Down To Rest, And The Chariot Wheels Of Vanity, Still Rolling Here And There Through Distant Streets, Are Bearing Her To Halls Roofed In And Lighted To The Due Pitch For Her; And Only Vice And Misery, To Prowl Or To Moan Like Night Birds, Are Abroad.

A Man's Perfection Is His Work.

Quackery Gives Birth To Nothing; Gives Death To All Things.

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Pin Your Faith To No Ones Sleeves, Haven't You Two Eyes Of Your Own.

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There Is Something In Man Which Your Science Cannot Satisfy.

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Man Is A Tool-using Animal.

There Are But Two Ways Of Paying Debt: Increase Of Industry In Raising Income, Increase Of Thrift In Laying Out.

How Indestructibly The Good Grows, And Propagates Itself, Even Among The Weedy Entanglements Of Evil.

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How Great A Possibility, How Small A Realized Result.

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Nature Alone Is Antique, And The Oldest Art A Mushroom.

Worship Is Transcendent Wonder.

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Speak Not At All, In Any Wise, Till You Have Somewhat To Speak; Care Not For The Reward Of Your Speaking, But Simply And With Undivided Mind For The Truth Of Your Speaking.

Weak Eyes Are Fondest Of Glittering Objects.

Know What Thou Canst Work At, And Work At It Like A Hercules.

Whose School-hours Are All The Days And Nights Of Our Existence.

Infinite Is The Help Man Can Yield To Man.

Not What You Possess But What You Do With What You Have, Determines Your True Worth.

Overconsumption

Battles, In These Ages, Are Transacted By Mechanism; With The Slightest Possible Development Of Human Individuality Or Spontaneity; Men Now Even Die, And Kill One Another, In An Artificial Manner.

The Best Effect Of Any Book Is That It Excites The Reader To Self Activity.

Trust Not The Heart Of That Man For Whom Old Clothes Are Not Venerable.

History Is The Distillation Of Rumour.

Social Science, Is Not A 'gay Science' But Rueful, Which Finds The Secret Of This Universe In 'supply And Demand' And Reduces The Duty Of Human Governors To That Of Letting Men Alone. Not A 'gay Science', No, A Dreary, Desolate, And Indeed Quite Abject And Distressing One; What We Might Call, The Dismal Science

A Thought Once Awakened Does Not Again Slumber.

Conviction Is Worthless Unless It Is Converted Into Conduct.

The Bible Is The Truest Utterance That Ever Came By Alphabetic Letters From The Soul Of Man, Through Which, As Through A Window Divinely Opened, All Men Can Look Into The Stillness Of Eternity, And Discern In Glimpses Their Far-distant, Long-forgotten Home.

No Mortal Has A Right To Wag His Tongue, Much Less To Wag His Pen, Without Saying Something.

If Jesus Christ Were To Come Today, People Would Not Even Crucify Him. They Would Ask Him To Dinner, And Hear What He Had To Say, And Make Fun Of It.

And There Are Ben [jonson] And William Shakespeare In Wit-combat, Sure Enough; Ben Bearing Down Like A Mighty Spanish War-ship, Fraught With All Learning And Artillery; Shakespeare Whisking Away From Him - Whisking Right Through Him, Athwart The Big Bulk And Timbers Of Him; Like A Miraculous Celestial Light-ship, Woven All Of Sheet-lightning And Sunbeams!

Wise Man Was He Who Counselled That Speculation Should Have Free Course, And Look Fearlessly Towards All The Thirty-two Points Of The Compass, Whithersoever And Howsoever It Listed.

Silence Is The Eternal Duty Of Man.

The Archenemy Is The Arch Stupid!

He Who Takes Not Counsel Of The Unseen And Silent, From Him Will Never Come Real Visibility And Speech.

France Was Long A Despotism Tempered By Epigrams.

Caution Is The Lower Story Of Prudence.

Nothing Builds Self-esteem And Self-confidence Like Accomplishment.

O Thou Who Art Able To Write A Book Which Once In The Two Centuries Or Oftener There Is A Man Gifted To Do, Envy Not Him Whom They Name City-builder, And Inexpressibly Pity Him Whom They Name Conqueror Or City-burner.

The Public Is Anold Woman.let Her Maunderand Mumble.

Poetry, Therefore, We Will Call Musical Thought.

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I Know So Little About Any History. How Little Do I Know Even About The History Of Myself.

It Were A Real Increase Of Human Happiness, Could All Young Men From The Age Of Nineteen Be Covered Under Barrels, Or Rendered Otherwise Invisible; And There Left To Follow Their Lawful Studies And Callings, Till They Emerged, Sadder And Wiser, At The Age Of Twenty-five.

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.

All Work, Even Cotton-spinning, Is Noble; Work Is Alone Noble.

It Is The Feeling Of Injustice That Is Insupportable To All Men.

Out Of Eternity The New Day Is Born; Into Eternity At Night Will Return.

The Greatest Mistake Is To Imagine That We Never Err.

Superstition! That Horrid Incubus Which Dwelt In Darkness, Shunning The Light, With All Its Racks, And Poison Chalices, And Foul Sleeping Draughts, Is Passing Away Without Return. Religion Cannot Pass Away. The Burning Of A Little Straw May Hide The Stars Of The Sky; But The Stars Are There And Will Reappear.

An Everlasting Lodestar, That Beams The Brighter In The Heavens The Darker Here On Earth Grows The Night.

The Authentic Insight And Experience Of Any Human Soul, Were It But Insight And Experience In Hewing Of Wood And Drawing Of Water, Is Real Knowledge, A Real Possession And Acquirement.

There Is A Majesty And Mystery In Nature, Take Her As You Will. The Essence Of Poetry Comes Breathing To A Mind That Feels From Every Province Of Her Empire.

Burke Said There Were Three Estates In Parliament; But, In The Reporter's Gallery Yonder, There Sat A Fourth Estate More Important Far Than They All.

The Philosopher Is He To Whom The Highest Has Descended, And The Lowest Has Mounted Up; Who Is The Equal And Kindly Brother Of All.

Eternity Looks Grander And Kinder If Time Grow Meaner And More Hostile.

The Dead Are All Holy, Even They That Were Base And Wicked While Alive. Their Baseness And Wickedness Was Not They, Was But The Heavy And Unmanageable Environment That Lay Round Them.

Every Day That Is Born Into The World Comes Like A Burst Of Music And Rings The Whole Day Through, And You Make Of It A Dance, A Dirge, Or A Life March, As You Will.

History: A Distillation Of Rumor.

Why Tell Me That A Man Is A Fine Speaker, If It Is Not The Truth That He Is Speaking?

Speech Is Of Time, Silence Is Of Eternity.

What Is All Knowledge Too But Recorded Experience, And A Product Of History; Of Which, Therefore, Reasoning And Belief, No Less Than Action And Passion, Are Essential Materials?

O Heaven, It Is Mysterious, It Is Awful To Consider That We Not Only Carry Each A Future Ghost Within Him; But Are, In Very Deed, Ghosts!

The Great Silent Man! Looking Round On The Noisy Inanity Of The World,--words With Little Meaning, Actions With Little Worth,--one Loves To Reflect On The Great Empire Of Silence.

Not Our Logical, Mensurative Faculty, But Our Imaginative One Is King Over Us; I Might Say, Priest And Prophet To Lead Us Heavenward; Or Magician And Wizard To Lead Us Hellward.

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Speech That Leads Not To Action, Still More That Hinders It, Is A Nuisance On The Earth.

A Fourth Estate, Of Able Editors, Springs Up.

My Whinstone House My Castle Is, I Have My Own Four Walls.

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Magic In The World

A Witty Statesman Said, You Might Prove Anything By Figures.

Democracy Means Despair Of Finding Any Heroes To Govern You, And Contented Putting Up With The Want Of Them.

Speech Is Great, But Silence Is Greater.

We Arc The Miracle Of Miracles, The Great Inscrutable Mystery Of God.

The Meaning Of Song Goes Deep. Who In Logical Words Can Explain The Effect Music Has On Us? A Kind Of Inarticulate, Unfathomable Speech, Which Leads Us To The Edge Of The Infinite, And Lets Us For A Moment Gaze Into That!

The Press Is The Fourth Estate Of The Realm.

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Silence Is More Eloquent Than Words.

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The Eye Sees What It Brings The Power To See.

Who Is There That, In Logical Words, Can Express The Effect Music Has On Us?

The Actual Well Seen Is Ideal.

No Man Is Born Without Ambitious Worldly Desires.

Democracy Will Prevail When Men Believe The Vote Of Judas As Good As That Of Jesus Christ.

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Laughter Is The Cipher Key Wherewith We Decipher The Whole Man

Necessity Dispenseth With Decorum.

For, Strictly Considered, What Is All Knowledge Too But Recorded Experience, And A Product Of History; Of Which, Therefore, Reasoning And Belief, No Less Than Action And Passion, Are Essential Materials?

At Worst, Is Not This An Unjust World, Full Of Nothing But Beasts Of Prey, Four-footed Or Two-footed?

Men's Hearts Ought Not To Be Set Against One Another, But Set With One Another And All Against Evil Only.

Obedience Is Our Universal Duty And Destiny; Wherein Whoso Will Not Bend Must Break; Too Early And Too Thoroughly We Cannot Be Trained To Know That "would," In This World Of Ours, Is A Mere Zero To "should," And For Most Part As The Smallest Of Fractions Even To "shall.

The Beginning Of All Wisdom Is To Look Fixedly On Clothes, Or Even With Armed Eyesight, Till They Become Transparent.

Silence, The Great Empire Of Silence: Higher Than All Stars; Deeper Than The Kingdom Of Death! It Alone Is Great; All Else Is Small.

Is Not Light Grander Than Fire? It Is The Same Element In A State Of Purity.

Authors Are The Vanguard In The March Of Mind, The Intellectual Backwoodsmen, Reclaiming From The Idle Wilderness New Territories For The Thought And Activity Of Their Happier Brethren.

Persons, With Big Wigs Many Of Them And Austere Aspect, Whom I Take To Be Professors Of The Dismal Science… Coining “dismal Science” As A Nickname For Political Economy

The Modern Majesty Consists In Work. What A Man Can Do Is His Greatest Ornament, And He Always Consults His Dignity By Doing It.

In Our Wide World There Is But One Altogether Fatal Personage, The Dunce,--he That Speaks Irrationally, That Sees Not, And Yet Thinks He Sees.

Secrecy Is The Element Of All Goodness; Even Virtue, Even Beauty Is Mysterious.

What Unknown Seas Of Feeling Lie In Man, And Will From Time To Time Break Through!

The Merit Of Originality Is Not Novelty; It Is Sincerity. The Believing Man Is The Original Man; Whatsoever He Believes, He Believes It For Himself, Not For Another.

For All Right Judgment Of Any Man Or Things It Is Useful, Nay, Essential, To See His Good Qualities Before Pronouncing On His Bad.

Nine-tenths Of The Miseries And Vices Of Mankind Proceed From Idleness.

All Men, If They Work Not As In The Great Taskmaster's Eye, Will Work Wrong, And Work Unhappily For Themselves And For You.

No Pressure, No Diamonds.

There Is Precious Instruction To Be Got By Finding We Were Wrong.

I Do Not Believe In The Collective Wisdom Of Individual Ignorance.

No Ghost Was Every Seen By Two Pair Of Eyes.

The Great Law Of Culture Is, Let Each Become All That He Was Created Capable Of Being; Expand, If Possible, To His Full Growth; Resisting All Impediments, Casting Off All Foreign, Especially All Noxious Adhesions, And Show Himself At Length In His Own Shape And Stature Be These What They May.

Science Must Have Originated In The Feeling That Something Was Wrong.

In No Time Whatever Can Small Critics Entirely Eradicate Out Of Living Men's Hearts A Certain Altogether Peculiar Collar Reverence For Great Men--genuine Admiration, Loyalty, Adora-tion.

What Are Your Axioms, And Categories, And Systems, And Aphorisms? Words, Words.... Be Not The Slave Of Words.

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