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Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.

— Thomas Carlyle Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840)

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Slavery

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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What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence?

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The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.

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The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves.

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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.