Thomas Carlyle - Work Quotes

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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
Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope.

Thomas Carlyle
I plead guilty to valuing such a man beyond all other sorts of men. Smooth-shaven Respectabilities not a few one finds, that are not good for much. Small thanks to a man for keeping his hands clean, who would not touch the work but with gloves on!

Thomas Carlyle
"A fair day's wages for a fair day's work": it is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governing. It is the everlasting right of man.

Thomas Carlyle
He was…a man of an immense head and great jaws like a crocodile's, cast in a mold designed for prodigious work.

Thomas Carlyle
All work is as seed sown; it grows and spreads, and sows itself anew.

Thomas Carlyle
Alas, our noble men of genius, Heaven's real messengers to us, they also rendered nearly futile by the wasteful time;—preappointed they everywhere, and assiduously trained by all their pedagogues and monitors, to "rise in Parliament," to compose orations, write books, or in short speak words, for the approval of reviewers; instead of doing real kingly work to be approved of by the gods!

Thomas Carlyle
There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in idleness alone there is perpetual despair.

Thomas Carlyle
It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe.

Thomas Carlyle
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose; he has found it and will follow it!

Thomas Carlyle
Considering the multitude of mortals that handle the pen in these days, and can mostly spell, and write without glaring violations of grammar, the question naturally arises: How is it, then, that no work proceeds from them, bearing any stamp of authenticity and permanence; of worth for more than one day?

Thomas Carlyle
Work is the grand cure of all the maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind.

Thomas Carlyle
There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual despair.

Thomas Carlyle
This great maxim of philosophy he had gathered by the teaching of nature alone — that man was created to work, not to speculate or feel or dream. Accordingly, he set his whole heart thitherwards. He did work wisely and unweariedly, and perhaps performed more with the tools he had than any man I now know.

Thomas Carlyle
There is an irrepressible tendency in every man to develop himself according to the magnitude which Nature has made him of; to speak out, to act out, what nature has laid in him. This is proper, fit, inevitable; nay it is a duty, and even the summary of duties for a man. The meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consisting in this: To unfold your self, to work what thing you have the faculty for.

Thomas Carlyle
The latest Gospel in this world is, Know thy work and do it. 'Know thyself:' long enough has that poor 'self' of thine tormented thee; thou wilt never get to 'know' it, I believe! Think it not thy business, this of knowing thyself; thou art an unknowable individual: know what thou canst work at; and work at it, like a Hercules! That will be thy better plan.

Thomas Carlyle
Even in the meanest sorts of Labor, the whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real harmony the instant he sets himself to work.

Thomas Carlyle
Not only was Thebes built by the music of an Orpheus; but without the music of some inspired Orpheus was no city ever built, no work that man glories in ever done.

Thomas Carlyle
That a Parliament, especially a Parliament with Newspaper Reporters firmly established in it, is an entity which by its very nature cannot do work, but can do talk only.

Thomas Carlyle
For this also we will honour the poor Manchester Insurrection, and augur well of it. A deep unspoken sense lies in these strong men,— inconsiderable, almost stupid, as all they can articulate of it is. Amid all violent stupidity of speech, a right noble instinct of what is doable and what is not doable never forsakes them: the strong inarticulate men and workers, whom Fact patronises; of whom, in all difficulty and work whatsoever, there is good augury!

Thomas Carlyle
Nay, am not I also the humble James Carlyle's work? I owe him much more than existence, I owe him a noble inspiring example (now that I can read it in that rustic character). It was he exclusively that determined on educating me; that from his small hard-earned funds sent me to school and college, and made me whatever I am or may become. Let me not mourn for my father, let me do worthily of him. So shall he still live even here in me, and his worth plant itself honorably forth into new generations.

Thomas Carlyle
Work earnestly at anything, you will by degrees learn to work at all things.

Thomas Carlyle
Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work no miracles. I? "I am a Public Preacher;" appointed to preach this doctrine to all creatures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really from of old been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world, says he; is it not wonderful, the work of Allah; wholly "a sign to you," if your eyes were open!

Thomas Carlyle
All sorts of Heroes are intrinsically of the same material; that given a great soul, open to the Divine Significance of Life, then there is given a man fit to speak of this, to sing of this, to fight and work for this, in a great, victorious, enduring manner; there is given a Hero, -- the outward shape of whom will depend on the time and the environment he finds himself in.

Thomas Carlyle
He that will not work according to his faculty, let him perish according to his necessity: There is no law juster than that.

Thomas Carlyle
The glory of a workman, still more of a master workman, that he does his work well, ought to be his most precious possession; like the honor of a soldier, dearer to him than life.

Thomas Carlyle
Genuine Work alone, what thou workest faithfully, that is eternal, as the Almighty Founder and World-Builder himself.

Thomas Carlyle
But oppression by your Mock-Superiors well shaken off, the grand problem yet remains to solve: That of finding government by your Real-Superiors! Alas, how shall we ever learn the solution of that, benighted, bewildered, sniffing, sneering, godforgetting unfortunates as we are? It is a work for centuries; to be taught us by tribulations, confusions, insurrections, obstructions; who knows if not by conflagration and despair! It is a lesson inclusive of all other lessons; the hardest of all lessons to learn.

Thomas Carlyle
A man with a half volition goes backwards and forwards, and makes no way on the smoothest road; a man with a whole volition advances on the roughest, and will reach his purpose, if there be even a little worthiness in it. The man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - a waif, a nothing, a no man. Have a purpose in life and having it, throw such strength of mind and muscle into your work as God has given you.

Thomas Carlyle
Properly speaking, the Land belongs to these two: To the Almighty God; and to all His Children of Men that have ever worked well on it, or that shall ever work well on it. No generation of men can or could, with never such solemnity and effort, sell Land on any other principle: it is not the property of any generation, we say, but that of all the past generations that have worked on it, and of all the future ones that shall work on it.

Thomas Carlyle