"Unless my Algebra deceive me, Unity itself divided by Zero will give Infinity." (Thomas Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus", 1836)
"Statistics is a science which ought to be honourable, the basis of many most important sciences; but it is not to be carried on by steam, this science, any more than others are; a wise hand is requisite for carrying it on. Conclusive facts are inseparable from unconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows." (Thomas Carlyle, "Critical and Miscellaneous Essays", 1838)
"Metaphysics is the attempt of the mind to rise above the mind." (Thomas Carlyle, "Critical and Miscellaneous: Collected and Republished", 1839)
"The eye of the intellect 'sees in all objects what it brought with it the means of seeing'" (Thomas Carlyle, [probably quoting Varnhagen von Ense] 1839)
"A judicious man looks at Statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted on him." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"An irreverent knowledge is no knowledge; may be a development of the logical or other handicraft faculty inward or outward; but is no culture of the soul of a man. A knowledge that ends in barren self-worship, comparative indifierence or contempt for all God's Universe except one insignfficant item thereof, what is it? Handicraft development, and even shallow as handicraft. Nevertheless is handicraft itself, and the habit of the merest logic, nothing? It is already something; it is the indispensable beginning of every thing! Wise men know it to be an indisj)ensable something; not yet much ; and would so gladly superadd to it the element whereby it may become all. Wise men would not quarrel in attempting this ; they would lovingly co-operate in attempting it." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"Inquiries wisely gone into, even on this most complex matter, will yield results worth something, not nothing. But it is a most complex matter; on which, whether for the past or the present. Statistic Inquiry, with its limited means, with its short vision and headlong extensive dogmatism, as yet too often throws not light, but error worse than darkness." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"Tables are like cobwebs, like the sieve of Danaides; beautifully reticulated, orderly to look upon, but which will hold no conclusion. Tables are abstractions, and the object a most concrete one, so difficult to read the essence of." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"There are innumerable circumstances ; and one circumstance left out may be the vital one on which all turned. Statistics is a science which ought to be honourable, the basis
of many most important sciences; but it is not to be carried on by steam, this science, any more than others are; a wise head is requisite for carrying it on. Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that ah-eady understands and knows." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"There is one fact which Statistic Science has communicated, and a most astonishing one ; the inference from which is pregnant as to this matter." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"What constitutes the well-being of a man? Many things; of which the wages he gets, and the bread he buys with them, are but one preliminary item. Grant, however, that the
wages were the whole; that once knowing the wages and the price of bread, we know all ; then what are the wages? Statistic Inquiry, in its present unguided condition, cannot
tell. The average rate of day's wages is not correctly ascertained for any portion of this country; not only not for half-centuries, it is not even ascertained anywhere for decades
or years: far from instituting comparisons with the past, the present itself is unknown to us." (Thomas Carlyle, "Chartism", 1840)
"Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, - till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, and must give place to another." (Thomas Carlyle, “The Hero As Divinity”, [lecture, in "On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History: Six Lectures", 1857) 1840)
"A judicious man uses statistics, not to get knowledge, but to save himself from having ignorance foisted upon him." (Thomas Carlyle)
"A man protesting against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all men that believe in truth." (Thomas Carlyle)
"Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows." (Thomas Carlyle)
"In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment." (Thomas Carlyle)
"Once turn to practice, error and truth will no longer consort together [...]." (Thomas Carlyle)
"Science rests on reason and experiment, and can meet an opponent with calmness." (Thomas Carlyle)
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