The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.
Thomas CarlyleRead
Skepticism . . . is not intellectual only it is moral also, a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Skepticism undermines both intellect and morality, impacting the entire essence of a person.
In this quote, Thomas Carlyle emphasizes that skepticism goes beyond merely questioning or doubting; it affects the moral fabric of an individual. When a person becomes overly skeptical, it leads to a deterioration of not only their intellectual pursuits but also the core values and ethics that govern their behavior and decisions, ultimately resulting in a decline of the whole soul.
Themes
SkepticismMoralityIntellectSoulDoubt
In practice
Example use cases
During a lecture on philosophy, this quote could be used to provoke thought about the implications of a skeptical mindset.
More from Thomas Carlyle
All quotes βThirty 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
βTo think the way you do,β he said smiling, βyou have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope.β βOn both, perhaps.β
Albert CamusRead
The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.
James A. BaldwinRead
To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.
DemocritusRead
To see the earth as we now see it, small and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the unending night ~ brothers who see now they are truly brothers.
Archibald MacleishRead
The bigger a state becomes the more liberty diminishes.
Jean-Jacques RousseauRead
I looked upon a clock to find the truth. The hours were passing like ivory chess figures, striking piano notes, and the minutes raced on wires mounted like tin soldiers. Hours like tall ebony women with gongs between their legs, tolling continuously so that I could not count them. I heard the rolling of my heart-beats; I heard the footsteps of my dreams, and the beat of time was lost among them like the face of truth.
Anais NinRead