Thirty millions, mostly fools.
Thomas CarlyleRead
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Interpretation
A good person's contributions are often unnoticed but essential for growth and nourishment.
This quote by Thomas Carlyle emphasizes the importance of the selfless acts performed by individuals who may not seek recognition. Just like an underground vein of water nourishes the soil without being seen, the hidden efforts of good people sustain and enhance the well-being of the community, illustrating that the impact of such kindness is profound yet often goes unacknowledged.
In practice
During a speech on community service, you can quote this to inspire others to recognize the value of hidden acts of kindness.
Thirty millions, mostly fools.
There is a great discovery still to be made in literature, that of paying literary men by the quantity they do not write.
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.
Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil; it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
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.
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.
If you believe in God, work with Him. If you do not, become one.
Gradually I came to realize that the process of saving the desert of the human heart and revegetating the actual desert is actually the same thing.
Empires fall, ids explode, great symphonies are written, and behind all of it is a single instinct that demands satisfaction.
The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
We offer peace and neighborliness to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Hebrew nation for the common good of all.
I suspect that one of capitalism's crucial assets derives from the fact that the imagination of economists, including its critics, lags well behind its own inventiveness, the arbitrariness of its undertaking and the ruthlessness of the way in which it proceeds.
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