The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
Good breeding differs, if at all, from high breeding only as it gracefully remembers the rights of others, rather than gracefully insists on its own rights.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Good breeding involves consideration for others, distinguishing it from merely having a high social status.
In this quote, Thomas Carlyle emphasizes that true good breeding is characterized by an awareness and respect for the rights and feelings of others. While high breeding often pertains to social status and privilege, good breeding transcends this by promoting humility and grace, focusing on the dignity of others rather than solely on one's own social entitlements.
Themes
Good BreedingRespectHumilitySocial StatusRightsConsideration
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social etiquette at a charity event.
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.
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
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