Thomas Carlyle Quotes

We have become a force of nature.

Energy, like the biblical grain of the mustard-seed, will remove mountains.

I go where the sound of thunder is.

Nature abhors the old.

Think of the fierce energy concentrated in an acorn! You bury it in the ground, and it explodes into an oak! Bury a sheep, and nothing happens but decay.

Do you think there is any other means of achieving progress except through Rajas?

The process of transformation consists mostly of decay.

I have been Europe's last hope. She proved incapable of refashioning herself by means of voluntary reform. She showed herself impervious to charm and persuasion. To take her I had to use violence. (26th February)

This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.

This world... ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out.

If we see nature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as progressing, she is beautiful.

To be alive──is Power.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

Not one atom can rest until it finds its freedom.

Getting people to fight by letting the force of momentum work is like rolling logs and rocks. Logs and rocks are still when in a secure place, but roll on an incline; they remain stationary if square, they roll if round. Therefore, when people are skillfully led into battle, the momentum is like that of round rocks rolling down a high mountain - this is force.

Nevertheless if any skillful Servant of Nature shall bring force to bear on matter, and shall vex it and drive it to extremities as if with the purpose of reducing it to nothing, then will matter (since annihilation or true destruction is not possible except by the omnipotence of God) finding itself in these straits, turn and transform itself into strange shapes, passing from one change to another till it has gone through the whole circle and finished the period.

All things are changing; and thou thyself art in continuous mutation and in a manner in continuous destruction and the whole universe to.

When the leaves of the strongest tree fall, spring is here.

Motion is created by the destruction of balance.

The germ of creation lies in violence.

Power exhibits itself under two distinct forms,--strength and force,--each possessing peculiar qualities, and each perfect in its own sphere. Strength is typified by the oak, the rock, the mountain. Force embodies itself in the cataract, the tempest, and the thunder-bolt.

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.

Make something, a kind of object, which as it changes or falls apart (dies as it were) or increases in its parts (grows as it were) offers no clue as to what its state or form or nature was at any previous time. Physical and Metaphysical. Obstinacy. Could this be a useful object?