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Home
Authors
Thomas B. Macaulay
English
Historian
About the author
He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Mind
#Poetry
People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#People
#Will
#Law
#Power
#Enemies
#Laws
Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Nothing
#Maxim
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Words
#People
#Nothing
#Government
Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Nothing
#Money
#Advertising
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#People
#Freedom
#Old
#Habit
#Self
#Fool
#Politicians
#Maxim
#Water
I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Poor
#Books
#Desire
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Life
#Dignity
#History
#English
#Succeed
Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Night
#England
He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close, and rendering it portable.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Thought
#Talent
Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Action
As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Civilization
#Poetry
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Man
#Gods
#Fathers
A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#May
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Ladies
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Character
#Man
#Measure
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Constitution
We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Public
#Morality
We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Age
#Genius
#Proof
Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#May
#Reform
#Voice
#Events
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#May
#Country
#Science
#Population
#Knowledge
#Class
To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#God
#Man
#Philosophy
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Navy
#Seamen
#Gentlemen
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Freedom
#Cure
Reform, that we may preserve.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#May
#Reform
The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Persuasion
#Truth
#Oratory
She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Church
The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Logic
#Men
#Knowledge
#Theory
The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Bible
#Power
#English
#Language
#Beauty
The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Honor
#State
#Effect
#Welfare
#Indifference
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Portraits
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#People
#Government
Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#World
#Man
#Men
#Letters
#Temple
A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Constitution
The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Pleasure
#Pain
An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.
Thomas B. Macaulay,
English
Historian
#Utopia