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That, on the whole, if you have got the intrinsic qualities, you have got everything, and the preliminaries will prove attainable; but that if you have got only the preliminaries, you have yet got nothing.

— Thomas Carlyle Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850)

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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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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.