Thomas Carlyle

1795–1881 · Scottish essayist, historian & social critic

Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish-born writer and one of the most influential social critics of Victorian Britain. His 1843 polemic Past and Present contrasted the disciplined life of a medieval monastery with the spiritual emptiness he saw in industrial England, and it made the “gospel of work” central to his thought. Lines from its chapter “Labour” — including this one — became touchstones of the Victorian work ethic.

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2 quotes we’ve traced to Thomas Carlyle

“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness”

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“Give them a whiff of grapeshot”

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