The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
Men seldom, or rather never for a length of time and deliberately, rebel against anything that does not deserve rebelling against.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People only resist against things that are truly unjust or wrong.
This quote by Thomas Carlyle suggests that rebellion is often a response to perceived injustice. People do not typically rise up against the ordinary or the acceptable, but when they encounter something that is fundamentally wrong or oppressive, they may feel compelled to take a stand and resist, highlighting the importance of recognizing and challenging true injustices in society.
Themes
RebellionJusticeInjusticeSocietyResistance
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech discussing civil rights, one might use this quote to highlight the necessity of standing up against injustice.
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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He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
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