"Self-contemplation is infallibly the symptom of disease."
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Thomas Carlyle quotes (page 10 of 41)
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"Man, it is not thy works, which are mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in, that can have worth or continuance."
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"Contented saturnine human figures, a dozen or so of them, sitting around a large long table...Perfect equality is to be the rule; no rising or notice taken when anybody enters or leaves. Let the entering man take his place and pipe, without obligatory remarks; if he cannot smoke...let him at least affect to do so, and not ruffle the established stream of things."
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"Caution is the lower story of prudence."
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"It is part of my creed that the only poetry is history, could we tell it right."
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"There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness."
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"The great silent man! Looking round on the noisy inanity of the world,--words with little meaning, actions with little worth,--one loves to reflect on the great Empire of Silence."
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"Thou fool! Nature alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; that idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age."
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"Creation is great, and cannot be understood."
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"Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness on the confines of two everlasting empires, - Necessity and Free Will."
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"Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break; too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that "would," in this world of ours, is a mere zero to "should," and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to "shall."
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"The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self activity."
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"Of all your troubles, great and small, the greatest are the ones that don't happen at all."
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"Oh, give us the man who sings at his work."
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"There are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out."
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"Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius."
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"The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind."
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"The first duty of man is that of subduing fear."
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"If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt."
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"No man sees far, most see no farther than their noses."
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