Thomas B. Macaulay Poetry Quotations

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

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.

As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.

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