Thomas Carlyle Quotes on Meaning

5 quotes

  1. The work we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

  2. For is not a Symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like?

  3. The highest ensign that men ever met and embraced under, the Cross itself, had no meaning save an accidental extrinsic one.

  4. Every pitifulest whipster that walks within a skin has had his head filled with the notion that he is, shall be, or by all human and divine laws ought to be, 'happy.' His wishes, the pitifulest whipster's, are to be fulfilled for him; his days, the pitifulest whipster's, are to flow on in an ever-gentle current of enjoyment, impossible even for the gods. The prophets preach to us, Thou shalt be happy; thou shalt love pleasant things, and find them. The people clamor, Why have we not found pleasant things? ...God's Laws are become a Greatest Happiness Principle. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul.

  5. A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. It they be not inhabited, what a waste of space.

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