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Hadst thou not Greek enough to understand thus much: The end of man is an Action, and not a Thought, though it were the noblest.

— Thomas Carlyle Sartor Resartus (1833)

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Notes from Wikiquote

The words Carlyle put in italics are a quotation from Book 1 of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

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Progress

More quotes by Thomas Carlyle

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

Notebooks (1830)

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840)

The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Carlyle (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.