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Quote#World

If we read History with any degree of thoughtfulness, we shall find…

Quote byThomas Carlyle · 1795–1881

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Signs of the Times (1829).

English (original)

If we read History with any degree of thoughtfulness, we shall find that checks and balances of Profit and Loss have never been the grand agents with men, that they have never been roused into deep, thorough, all-pervading efforts by any computable prospect of Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object; but always for some invisible and infinite one.

— Thomas Carlyle

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