Thomas B. Macaulay Mean Quotations

... it is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern.

The merit of poetry, in its wildest forms, still consists in its truth-truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors.

Office of itself does much to equalize politicians. It by no means brings all characters to a level; but it does bring high characters down and low characters up towards a common standard.

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,--endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity.

Those who have read history with discrimination know the fallacy of those panegyrics and invectives which represent individuals as effecting great moral and intellectual revolutions, subverting established systems, and imprinting a new character on their age. The difference between one man and another is by no means so great as the superstitious crowd suppose.

Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.