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Quotes from The French Revolution. A History — Thomas Carlyle

1795–1881 Scotland

← All quotes by Thomas Carlyle

16 quotes

For what imaginable purpose was man made, if not to be "happy"?

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

"The people may eat grass": hasty words, which fly abroad irrevocable—and will send back tidings.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

Do nothing, only keep agitating, debating; and things will destroy themselves.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

The All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To do.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

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

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

He that has a secret should not only hide it, but hide that he has it to hide.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

O poor mortals, how ye make this earth bitter for each other.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

To a shower of gold most things are penetrable.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

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 French Revolution. A History (1837)

There are depths in man which go down the length of the lowest Hell, as there are heights which reach the highest Heaven; — for are not both Heaven and Hell made out of him, everlasting Miracle and Mystery that he is?

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

The difference between Orthodoxy or Mydoxy and Heterodoxy or Thy-doxy.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

History a distillation of Rumour.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

No lie you can speak or act but it will come, after longer or shorter circulation, like a Bill drawn on Nature's Reality, and be presented there for payment, — with the answer, No effects.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophecy; whither all Delusions are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived. For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no Lie can live for ever. The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, and Heaven's Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour.

The French Revolution. A History (1837)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Carlyle (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.