Quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay

About Thomas Babington Macaulay:

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer; his books on British history have been hailed as literary masterpieces.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

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

There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be.

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

Then none was for a party; Then all were for the state; Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great; Then lands were fairly proportioned; Then spoils were fairly sold; The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Then none was for a party; Then 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 Babington Macaulay

Pour, varlet, pour the water The water steaming hot! A spoonful for each man of us Another for the pot!

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 h...

Thomas Babington Macaulay

There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

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 w...

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

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

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

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

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 mas...

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Babington Macaulay
  • DescriptionBritish historian and Whig politician
  • BornOctober 25, 1800
  • DiedDecember 28, 1859
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionHistorian; Politician; Poet
  • AwardsOrder Of Merit For Arts And Science; Fellow Of The Royal Society