The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Advocacy is a unique profession where one's intellect and talents are displayed publicly for judgment and use.
In this quote, Thomas Carlyle reflects on the peculiar nature of advocacy, emphasizing that one's intellect and skills are put on display like a product available for purchase. This metaphor suggests that advocacy involves a significant sacrifice of personal identity as individuals must allow their ideas and intellect to be scrutinized and judged by others, making it a complex and sometimes challenging trade.
Themes
AdvocacyIntellectTradeIdentityPublic
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of public service, one might say, 'As Thomas Carlyle noted, advocacy reveals the unique trade of showcasing our intellect for the greater good.'
More from Thomas Carlyle
All quotes →Thirty 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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