Thomas Carlyle Quotes

       Thomas Carlyle
       1795-1881
      
       Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era. He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.
      
       Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was expected by his parents to become a preacher, but while at the University of Edinburgh, he lost his Christian faith. Calvinist values, however, remained with him throughout his life. This combination of a religious temperament with loss of faith in traditional Christianity made Carlyle's work appealing to many Victorians who were grappling with scientific and political changes that threatened the traditional social order.

For a hundred that can bear adversity there is hardly one that can bear prosperity.     Topics: Adversity, Prosperity Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life-purpose; he has found it, and will follow it! Labor is life.     Topics: Blessings, Work If time is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all.     Topics: Books, Time, Reading Good Christian people, here lies for you an inestimable loan; take all heed thereof, in all carefulness, employ it: with high recompense, or else with heavy penalty, will it one day be required back.     Topics: Christians Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.     Topics: Friendship Men's hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only.     Topics: Good and Evil The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.     Topics: Good and Evil No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!     Topics: Grace What is nature? Art thou not the living government of God? O Heaven, is it in very deed He then that ever speaks through thee, that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in me?     Topics: Heaven, Nature A man cannot make a pair of shoes rightly unless he do it in a devout manner.     Topics: Holiness Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given.     Topics: Hypocrisy, Piety In idleness there is a perpetual despair.     Topics: idleness