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 More Quotes by Thomas Carlyle More Quotes From Thomas Carlyle A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one. Thomas Carlyle positiveinspirationallife Of all the paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path .. A thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do .. To find this path, and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him. Thomas Carlyle changepathmen To each is given a certain inward talent, a certain outward environment or fortune; to each by wisest combination of these two, a certain maximum capacity. Thomas Carlyle inwardtalenttwo Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age. Thomas Carlyle natureyearsart A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun. Thomas Carlyle sightworkmen Show me the man you honor; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be. Thomas Carlyle honormenlong Learn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative in your reading; to read faithfully, and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in,--a real, not an imaginary,--and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in. Thomas Carlyle realreadingattention A fundamental mistake to call vehemence and rigidity strength! A man is not strong who takes convulsion-fits; though six men cannot hold him then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight without staggering, he is the strong man . . . A man who cannot hold his peace, till the time come for speaking and acting, is no right man. Thomas Carlyle strengthstrongmistake Let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself. Thomas Carlyle leadershipwantmoving Give us, O give us the man who sings at his work! Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time . . . he will do it better . . . he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible to fatigue while he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Thomas Carlyle starsworktime In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment. Thomas Carlyle notablemomentsinspirational There is so much data available to us, but most data won't help us succeed. Thomas Carlyle datasucceedhelping It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five. Thomas Carlyle realbirthdaymen The all importance of clothes has sprung up in the intellect of the dandy without effort, like an instinct of genius; he is inspired with clothes, a poet of clothes. Thomas Carlyle sprung-upclotheseffort Authors are the vanguard in the march of mind, the intellectual backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the idle wilderness new territories for the thought and activity of their happier brethren. Thomas Carlyle territoryintellectualmind The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity. The believing man is the original man; whatsoever he believes, he believes it for himself, not for another. Thomas Carlyle inspirationalmenbelieve For suffering and enduring there is no remedy, but striving and doing. Thomas Carlyle pain-and-sufferingsuffering-painstrive A thought once awakened does not again slumber. Thomas Carlyle awakenedslumberdoe The times are very bad. Very well, you are there to make them better. Thomas Carlyle wells Every poet, be his outward lot what it may, finds himself born in the midst of prose; h e has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal. Thomas Carlyle strugglemayworld