Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize.

In after-life you may have friends
fond, dear friends; but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows.

A kind of semi-Solomon, half-knowing everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.

Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.

It has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundation, have not been able to destroy capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to create it.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

The end of government is the happiness of the people.

If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, and gardens and fine dinners, and wine, and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king.

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

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

When the great Kepler bad at length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed: Whether my discoveries will be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is a matter that concerns them more than me. I may well be contented to wait one century for a reader, when God Himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an observer like myself.

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

In employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, we are only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself.

Boswell is the first of biographers.

Re: Robert Montgomery's Poems His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. There are colours in the Turkey carpet out of which a picture might be made. There are words in Mr. Montgomery's writing which, when disposed in certain orders and combinations,have made, and will make again, good poetry. But, as they now stand, they seem to be put together on principle in such a manner as to give no image of anything in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.

The sweeter sound of woman's praise.

I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.

The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George (son-in-law of James II) served his turn. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim, "Est il possible?"-"Is it possible?"

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.

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

At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.

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

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

It was before Deity embodied in a human form walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled in the dust.

What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!-To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.

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

Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.

The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character.

It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age.

I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake; and I can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of God.

The Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what the well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be contemplated without admiration.

What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.

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

A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.

Complete self-devotion is woman's part.

If any person had told the Parliament which met in terror and perplexity after the crash of 1720 that in 1830 the wealth of England would surpass all their wildest dreams, that the annual revenue would equal the principal of that debt which they considered an intolerable burden, that for one man of

A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf ... For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine; and it will then be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties.

If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.

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.

History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable.

A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque; yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner; yet he must possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis.

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

Nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.

Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things.

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.

He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.

We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents

[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

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.

Even Holland and Spain have been positively, though not relatively, advancing.

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

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

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.

So true it is, that nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

To be a really good historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectual distinctions.

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.

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.

Byron owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry.

There is no country in Europe which is so easy to over-run as Spain; there is no country which it is more difficult to conquer.

Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.

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.

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

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

The perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which men seem incapable, but which is sometimes found in women.

The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

The temple of silence and reconciliation.

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

Those who seem to load the public taste are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing.

We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary.

The Saviour of mankind Himself, in whose blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, has been called in question for words spoken.

Man is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his beliefs to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.

Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.

Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses.

Every sect clamors for toleration when it is down.

The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines in his poems.

The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.

We never could clearly understand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing.

More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning.

War is never lenient but where it is wanton; where men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge. This may be bad, but it is human nature; it is the clay as it came from the hands of the Potter.

But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams; and, in those Manchesters and Birminghams, hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test.

In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall.

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

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

We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason.

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.

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

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.

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

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

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings.

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.

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.

In the modern languages there was not, six hundred years ago, a single volume which is now read. The library of our profound scholar must have consisted entirely of Latin books.

Half-knowledge is worse than ignorance.

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.

A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.

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.