Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes - Page 7

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

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Poetry, Mind, Certain

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• 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.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Writing, Order, Turkeys

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• 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. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Liberty, Together, Civil Rights

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

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Justice, Quiet, Rich

  "On Warren Hastings" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1841.

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• That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, People, Desire

  "Essay on Mitford's History of Greece". Book by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1824.

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• 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

  Imagination, Miracle, Mind

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• Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Parent, Forever, Sound

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

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  History, Eulogy, Lasts

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• In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Criticism, May, Poet

  "Criticisms on the Principal Italian Writers, Dante", 1824.

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• 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

  Reading, Criticism, Body

  "Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems" by T.B. Macaulay, 1830.

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• Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for fantasy, planets and solar systems, will not suffice.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Country, Support, Fantasy

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• 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

  Believe, Men, Acting

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• 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

  Army, Gentleman, Navy

  "History of England". Book by Thomas B. Macaulay, Volume I, Chapter III, Part XXXII, 1848.

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• Every sect clamors for toleration when it is down.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Clamor, Sects, Toleration

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

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Years, Names, Byron

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• 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

  Race, Purpose, Littles

  "Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches" by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Volume 4, 2007.

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• 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

  Hands, Excitement, Individual

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• 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

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Learning

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• She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Atheism, Church, Deals

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• The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Believe, Fall, Government

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• 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

  Powerful, Men, Feelings

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• We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Strength, Nature, Character

  "Frederick the Great". Book by Thomas Babington Macaulay Baron Macaulay, p. 90, 1842.

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

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Judging, Happy Accidents

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• 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!

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Destiny, Men, Age

  "On Boswell's Life of Johnson" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1831.

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• 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.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Wages, Tests, England

  "The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay" by Thomas Pinney, vol. 6, p. 95", 1981.

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