Authors:
  1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. T
  4. Thomas Carlyle
  5. War

Thomas Carlyle Quotes about War

All Thomas Carlyle Quotes Accidents Achievement Acting Adversity Age Art Atheism Attitude Belief Bible Birth Brotherhood Business Change Character Charity Children Country Courage Creation Culture Darkness Death Defeat Democracy Desire Devil Doubt Duty Earth Economics Education Effort Eternity Evil Experience Failing Faith Fame Fashion Fear Feelings Fighting Freedom Funny Genius Giving God Gold Goodness Greatness Happiness Harmony Health Heart Heaven Hell History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Human Nature Humanity Idleness Ignorance Imagination Independence Inspiration Inspirational Jesus Journalism Joy Judgment Justice Knowledge Labor Language Laughter Leadership Learning Life Life And Love Love Loyalty Lying Math Mathematics Meditation Memories Money Motivation Motivational Music Nature Obedience Originality Pain Passion Past Peace Perfection Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Positive Power Progress Purpose Reading Reality Religion Respect Running Sadness School Science Silence Sin Sincerity Sorrow Soul Spirituality Spring Strength Stupidity Success Suffering Talent Teaching Time Tragedy Truth Understanding Unity Victory Virtue Vision Waiting War quotes Wealth Wisdom Work Worship Writing Youth
I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Thomas Carlyle
Wisdom, War, Believe

War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle.

Thomas Carlyle
Peace, War, Fighting
"Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty" by Emma Goldman, chapter five of Anarchism and Other Essays, 1911.

War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village, stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against one other.

Thomas Carlyle
Peace, Military, War
Attributed to Thomas Carlyle in "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty", essay by Emma Goldman, chapter five of Anarchism and Other Essays, 1911.

We call it a Society; and go about professing openly the totalest separation, isolation. Our life is not a mutual helpfulness; but rather, cloaked under due laws-of-war, named fair competition and so forth, it is a mutual hostility.

Thomas Carlyle
War, Law, Competition
Thomas Carlyle (1843). “Past and Present”, p.87

Parties on the back of Parties, at war with the world and with each other.

Thomas Carlyle
War, Party, History
Thomas Carlyle (2002). “The Life of Oliver Cromwell: With a Selection from His Letters and Speeches”, p.166, The Minerva Group, Inc.

Battles, in these ages, are transacted by mechanism; with the slightest possible development of human individuality or spontaneity; men now even die, and kill one another, in an artificial manner.

Thomas Carlyle
War, Men, Technology
Thomas Carlyle, G. B. Tennyson (1984). “Carlyle Reader”, p.356, CUP Archive

And there are Ben [Jonson] and William Shakespeare in wit-combat, sure enough; Ben bearing down like a mighty Spanish war-ship, fraught with all learning and artillery; Shakespeare whisking away from him - whisking right through him, athwart the big bulk and timbers of him; like a miraculous Celestial Light-ship, woven all of sheet-lightning and sunbeams!

Thomas Carlyle
War, Light, Ships

A battle is a terrible conjugation of the verb to kill: I kill, thou killest, he kills, we kill, they kill, all kill.

Thomas Carlyle
War, Battle, Verbs

Not our Logical, Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward; or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward.

Thomas Carlyle
Kings, War, Heaven
"Sartor Resartus: The Historian".

We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highway; nothing can resist us. We war with rude Nature; and, by our resistless engines, come off always victorious, and loaded with spoils.

Thomas Carlyle
War, Sea, Rude
1829 Signs of the Times.

Have not I myself known five hundred living soldiers sabred into crows' meat for a piece of glazed cotton, which they call their flag; which had you sold it at any market-cross, would not have brought above three groschen?

Thomas Carlyle
War, Soldier, Crow
Thomas Carlyle (1908). “Sartor Resartus and Essays on Burns and Scott”

You May Also Like: