The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Pleasure is not inherently evil, but becoming enslaved to it can undermine our morality.
This quote by Thomas Carlyle emphasizes that while it is human to enjoy pleasant things, the true danger lies in allowing those pleasures to dictate our actions and morality. When we become so dependent on external pleasures that we lose control over our ethical choices, we effectively enslave our moral self, compromising our integrity and autonomy in the process.
Themes
PleasureMoralitySlaveryEnjoymentSelf-Control
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on ethical responsibility, one could quote this to emphasize the importance of moral autonomy.
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
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.
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Philosophy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the divinity of its inmost shrine; her dictates descend among men, but she herself descends not : whoso would behold her must climb with long and laborious effort, nay, still linger in the forecourt, till manifold trial have proved him worthy of admission into the interior solemnities.
Thomas CarlyleRead
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