Thomas Carlyle Speech Quotations

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

As the Swiss inscription says: Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden, - "Speech is silver, Silence is golden;" or, as I might rather express it, Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity

Action hangs, as it were, ''dissolved'' in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.

Speech that leads not to action, still more that hinders it, is a nuisance on the earth.

Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking.

He who takes not counsel of the Unseen and Silent, from him will never come real visibility and speech.

Music... a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads to the edge of the Infinite.

Action hangs, as it were, dissolved in speech, in thoughts whereof speech is the shadow; and precipitates itself therefrom. The kind of speech in a man betokens the kind of action you will get from him.

Speech is too often not the art of concealing thought, but of quite stifling and suspending thought, so that there is none to conceal.

Speech is great, but silence is greater.

Song is the heroics of speech.

The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that!

Speech is silver, silence is golden.

Speech is of time, silence is of eternity.