Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes & Sayings

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics. — Thomas B. Macaulay

There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him; he changed his mind, and went to the oars. — Thomas B. Macaulay

But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,
Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?
Yes, thou wilt love me with exceeding love,
And I will tenfold all that love repay;
Still smiling, though the tender may reprove,
Still faithful, though the trusted may betray. — Thomas B. Macaulay

What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,
and that is not only true, but identical,
that men always act from self-interest. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Boswell is the first of biographers. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both. — Thomas B. Macaulay

It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less. — Thomas B. Macaulay

A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America. — Thomas B. Macaulay

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

A man who should act, for one day, on the supposition that all the people about him were influenced by the religion which they professed would find himself ruined by night. — Thomas B. Macaulay

How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

A Grecian history, perfectly written should be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The Orientals have another word for accident; it is "kismet,"
fate. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

The business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his characters. As soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the illusion is broken. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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 — Thomas B. Macaulay

Those who have read history with discrimination know the fallacy of those panegyrics and invectives which represent individuals as effecting great moral and intellectual revolutions, subverting established systems, and imprinting a new character on their age. The difference between one man and another is by no means so great as the superstitious crowd suppose. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

Language is the machine of the poet. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The study of the properties of numbers, Plato tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be shopkeepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things. — Thomas B. Macaulay

We are free, we are civilised, to little purpose, if we grudge to any portion of the human race an equal measure of freedom and civilisation. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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

The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Beards in olden times, were the emblems of wisdom and piety. — Thomas B. Macaulay

No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right. — Thomas B. Macaulay

How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school
its abstract doctrines for the initiated; its visible symbols, its imposing forms, its mythological fables, for the vulgar. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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

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

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

The sweeter sound of woman's praise. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

To be a really good historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectual distinctions. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses. — Thomas B. Macaulay

If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along. — Thomas B. Macaulay

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers of the Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Power, safely defied, touches its downfall. — Thomas B. Macaulay

History, is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men and woman. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires. — Thomas B. Macaulay

History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Oh, wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north,
With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red?
And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout?
And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread? — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The desire of posthumous fame and the dread of posthumous reproach and execration are feelings from the influence of which scarcely any man is perfectly free, and which in many men are powerful and constant motives of action. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads. — Thomas B. Macaulay

I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The business of everybody is the business of nobody. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind forever. — Thomas B. Macaulay

I am always nearest to myself, says the Latin proverb. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

A dominant religion is never ascetic. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty. — Thomas B. Macaulay

The temple of silence and reconciliation. — Thomas B. Macaulay

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple. — Thomas B. Macaulay

With the dead there is no rivalry, with the dead there is no change. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe! — Thomas B. Macaulay

We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Complete self-devotion is woman's part. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

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

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. — Thomas B. Macaulay

Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. — Thomas B. Macaulay