Thomas B. Macaulay Quotations

I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.

Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.

And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.

To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.

Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia

He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.

I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.

None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.

Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

We have heard it said that five per cent is the natural interest of money.

Obadiah Bind - their - kings - in - chains - and -their - nobles - with - links - of - iron.

Now who will stand on either hand / And keep the bridge with me?

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbor, and to love your neighbor's wife

He . . . felt towards those whom he had deserted that peculiar malignity which has, in all ages, been characteristic of apostates.

History begins in novel and ends in essay.

Few of the many wise apothegms, which have been uttered from the time of the seven sages of Greece to that of poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action

Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack; But those behind cried "Forward!" And those before cried "Back!

I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something that shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.

A propensity which, for want of a better name, we will venture to christen Boswellism.

The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night.

Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature.

Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrongs no more.

To carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak and cruel policy. When an extreme case calls for that remedy which is in its own nature most violent, and which, in such cases, is a remedy only because it is violent, it is idle to think of mitigating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing which negotiation or submission will do better: and to act on any other principle is, not to save blood and money, but to squander them.

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.

The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman.

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.

He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.

The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally.

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.

In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.

That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.

The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.

A man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of a sound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who in that department succeeded pre-eminently.

A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.

From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness,-a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife.

Ambrose Phillips . . . who had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby.

How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right.

The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn.

It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse.

It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds.

The temple of silence and reconciliation.

Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets whose works have come down to us were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore the sort of composition in which they have never been excelled.

The sweeter sound of woman's praise.

Queen Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels, and play debts, by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet significantly, whether they had ever read her favorite sermon--Dr. Tillotson on Evil Speaking.

Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

Then none was for a party; Than all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned; Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.

This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.

Cut off my head, and singular I am, Cut off my tail, and plural I appear; Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off? A sounding sea; What is my tail cut off? A rushing river; And in their mingling depths I fearless play, Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

With respect to the doctrine of a future life, a North American Indian knows just as much as any ancient or modern philosopher.

The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this: I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. But when I am the stronger I shall persecute you; for it is my duty to persecute error.

... 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.

No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

Every sect clamors for toleration when it is down.

Beards in olden times, were the emblems of wisdom and piety.

This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another.

In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence of public works, the ancients were at least our equals.

The Orientals have another word for accident; it is "kismet,"--fate.

In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.

No particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men.

The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their eloquence.

I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.

As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.

Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things.

Even the law of gravitation would be brought into dispute were there a pecuniary interest involved.