Thomas Carlyle Quotes
Here is a man with the greatest intellect in Europe, and yet he debases it by simply following majorities and the crowd.
Insulting British Prime Minister Gladstone with what today might be taken as a compliment:
Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, Scottish essayist and historian, Member of Parliament, Quoted in Brand, Gladstone
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It was his message about the possibilities about the atomic bomb that Albert Einstein transmitted to FDR, leading to American development of the bomb.
This was an observation and statement that made many conservatives unhappy with a figure who was usually their hero. However, Mises observed correctly, that any reactionary is supporting and defending what he/she perceives is the best of the past. But by definition the ideas are of the past and are the intellectual product of others. Therefore the ideas she espouses are never hers. The reactionary is intellectual dependent on the past. In contrast, liberals, progressives and radicals MIGHT be intellectually independent. A few are, but most echo their ideas. But the reactionary can never be intellectually independent.
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish historian, satirical writer, essayist, translator, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher. In his book On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (1841), he argued that the actions of the "Great Man" play a key role in history, claiming that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men". Other major works include The French Revolution: A History, 3 vols (1837) and The History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, 6 vols (1858–65).
