Thomas B. MacaulayHe had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.371Humanity
Thomas B. MacaulayHistory distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable. ✨ John Morley, Thomas B. Macaulay (2016). Machiavelli : the Fou… ▶361HumanityPolitics
Thomas B. MacaulayThe 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. ✨ On John Dryden by… ▶375PoliticsReading
Thomas B. MacaulayI don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.311Thought
Thomas B. MacaulayKnowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.323Love
Thomas B. MacaulayReform, that we may preserve. ✨ Debate on the First Reform Bill, March 2, 1831.356Truth
Thomas B. MacaulayThe 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? 378Politics
Thomas B. MacaulayWith the dead there is no rivalry, with the dead there is no change.323Death
Thomas B. MacaulayHe was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.379Sadness
Thomas B. MacaulayPerhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.291Thought
Thomas B. MacaulayYour Constitution is all sail and no anchor. ✨ Letter to H.S. Randall, May 23, 1857.346Sadness
Thomas B. MacaulayNothing except the mint can make money without advertising.357Politics
Thomas B. MacaulayThe gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm. ✨ On Hallam's Constitutional History by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1828.325Politics
Thomas B. MacaulayIt has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inu… ▶359Reading
Thomas B. MacaulayWe must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.3610Politics
Thomas B. MacaulayAs civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. ✨ On Milton by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1825.304Humanity
Thomas B. MacaulayThere 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. ✨ History of England. Boo… ▶348Reading
Thomas B. MacaulayMan 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.293Life
Thomas B. MacaulayNone 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 hi… ▶305Hope
Thomas B. MacaulayNothing is so useless as a general maxim. ✨ On Machiavelli by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1827.327Politics
Thomas B. MacaulayMany 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 th… ▶261HumanityPolitics
Thomas B. MacaulayBooks are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a boo… ▶273LifeReadingTime
Thomas B. MacaulayTo 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 rende… ▶339Thought
Thomas B. MacaulayA kind of semi-Solomon, half-knowing everything, from the cedar to the hyssop. ✨ Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations. Compiled by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt and Kate … ▶306Love
Thomas B. MacaulayThe 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 … ▶284Reflection
Thomas B. MacaulayThe highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.241Thought
Thomas B. MacaulayWhat a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!307DeathLoveReading
Thomas B. MacaulayThe Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. ✨ History of England. Volume I, Chapter II, 1849-1861.<… ▶297Sadness
Thomas B. MacaulayAnd 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?298HumanityTruth
Thomas B. MacaulayWe hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age. ✨ On Milton by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1825.243Sadness
