The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Laughter has the power to redeem a person's character and morality.
This quote by Thomas Carlyle suggests that laughter and the ability to truly enjoy life through humor can serve as a key to redeeming one's moral character. It implies that if a person can genuinely laugh, then they possess a spark of goodness within them, no matter their past actions or current state.
Themes
LaughterRedemptionMoralityHumorCharacter
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about overcoming adversity, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of finding joy.
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
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