The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing truth and power to resolve conflicts.
Thomas Carlyle's quote reflects the idea that when individuals or groups can clearly identify what is right and what is powerful, disputes or battles become unnecessary. The essence of conflict often lies in the search for understanding justice and authority, and once these are understood, the struggles dissipate.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about conflict resolution in a business meeting.
The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
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.
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.
This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path.
All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers.
You don't have to love animals to recognize that it is immoral and unjust to exploit them. But if you do love animals, but you continue to participate in their exploitation, you need to rethink your idea of what love means.
Is there not some chosen curse, some hidden thunder in the stores of heaven, red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man who owes his greatness to his country's ruin!
We're all complicit in the things we may be trying to oppose. I'm complicit in the things that I'm trying to oppose.
I know that every time I list something that I am, I am potentially alienating a whole group of people. Publicists and managers will encourage you not to say what political party you belong to, what you eat, what you don't eat, who you sleep with and all that stuff.
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