The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Action is more important than thought, even if that thought is noble.
Thomas Carlyle emphasizes that the ultimate purpose of humanity is to take action rather than merely contemplate ideas, regardless of how noble those ideas may be. This suggests that thought alone is insufficient; it is through action that we can create change and impact the world around us.
Themes
ActionThoughtNobilityPhilosophyChange
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech to encourage people to take initiative.
More from Thomas Carlyle
All quotes βThirty millions, mostly fools.
Thomas CarlyleRead
There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
Thomas CarlyleRead
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.
Thomas CarlyleRead
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
Similar quotes
There is no connection between the political ideas of our educated class and the deep places of the imagination.
Lionel TrillingRead
We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex.
Peter SingerRead
The only reason I'm in Hollywood is that I don't have the moral courage to refuse the money.
Marlon BrandoRead
Religion can emerge in all forms of feeling: here wild anger, there the sweetest pain; here consuming hatred, there the childlike smile of serene humility.
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich SchlegelRead
The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself
Marguerite YourcenarRead
We are slaves in the hands of nature - slaves to a bit of bread, slaves to praise, slaves to blame, slaves to wife, to husband, to child, slaves to everything.
Swami VivekanandaRead