The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Imagination alone is ineffective without the foundation of understanding.
This quote by Thomas Carlyle highlights the importance of combining imagination with understanding. While imagination allows us to dream and envision possibilities, it becomes a 'poor matter' when divorced from the knowledge and comprehension necessary to bring those ideas to life. Understanding provides the context and structure that make imaginative concepts viable and actionable.
Themes
ImaginationUnderstandingWisdomKnowledgeCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about creativity in the workplace.
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
Similar quotes
The slacker does not plow during planting season; at harvest time he looks, and there is nothing.
SolomonRead
Self-acceptance is my refusal to be in an adversarial relationship to myself.
Nathaniel BrandenRead
I’ve always been a word guy, I like weird words and I like American slang and all that and words that are no longer being used… I like to drag them out of the box and wave them around… this is an interesting one, it’s amazing how in addition to punctuation just a little pause in the wrong place can just completely transform the meaning of something.
Tom WaitsRead
Gratitude is a sign of maturity...Where there is appreciation: there is also courtesy and concern for the rights and property of others.
Gordon B. HinckleyRead
The Buddha’s principal message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusion that we draw must be let go. The only way to fully understand the bodhichitta teachings, the only way to practice them fully, is to abide in the unconditional openness of the prajna, patiently cutting through all our tendencies to hang on.
Pema ChodronRead
The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.
Thomas S. MonsonRead