The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
All destruction, by violent revolution or however it be, is but new creation on a wider scale.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Violent destruction can lead to new beginnings and greater transformations.
Thomas Carlyle suggests that acts of destruction, including those brought on by violent revolutions, ultimately pave the way for new creations and developments on a larger scale. This perspective implies that while chaos and turmoil come with destruction, they may also be a necessary part of growth and progress, giving rise to new opportunities and directions in society.
Themes
DestructionRevolutionCreationChangeProgress
In practice
Example use cases
Discussing the impact of revolutions in a history class.
More from Thomas Carlyle
All quotes βThirty millions, mostly fools.
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There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
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For the superior morality, of which we hear so much, we too would desire to be thankful: at the same time, it were but blindness to deny that this superior morality is properly rather an inferior criminality, produced not by greater love of Virtue, but by greater perfection of Police; and of that far subtler and stronger Police, called Public Opinion.
Thomas CarlyleRead
Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
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Clean undeniable right, clear undeniable might: either of these once ascertained puts an end to battle. All battle is a confused experiment to ascertain one and both of these.
Thomas CarlyleRead
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