Thomas Carlyle Quotes
No sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavoring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself.
Carlyle, Thomas. "Goethe." Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, vol. 1, James Munroe and Co., 1838, p. 223.
When there has been a great king or general in Japanese history, the children have rarely lived up to the potential of the father. There are many who observe that statistically this is quite likely for a number of reasons.
See {632269} for a later Scottish quotation on this principle.
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).
