Top 30 Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

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We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of g

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
Reform, that we may preserve.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Such night in England ne’er had been, nor ne’er again shall be.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close, and rendering it portable.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?
Thomas Babington Macaulay
As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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?
Thomas Babington Macaulay
He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
Persecution produced its natural effect on them. It found them a sect; it made them a faction.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
Thomas Babington Macaulay