Quote #74

His Religion is not an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas, prayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not 'succeed by being an easy religion.' As if indeed any religion, or cause holding of religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure, recompense, - sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler.

More from Thomas Carlyle

  1. Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers impatiently: I can work no miracles. I? 'I am a Public Preacher;' appointed to preach this d…
  2. Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider this man as a common volup…
  3. We are to remember what an umpire Nature is; what a greatness, composure of depth and tolerance there is in her. You take wheat to cast int…
  4. No Dilettantism in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest abou…
  5. I care little about the sword: I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in this world, with any sword or tongue or implement it has, or …
  6. Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
  7. Much has been said of Mahomet's propagating his Religion by the sword. It is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of the Christian Rel…
  8. We will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always of the superfinest sort; yet it can be said that there is always a tendency to good i…

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