TBThomas B. Macaulay

85 collected words

Thomas B. Macaulay

Life dates: 1800 AD — 1859 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

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Quotations and sayings

01c. 1829 AD

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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02c. 1829 AD

I have not the Chancellor's encyclopedic mind. He is indeed a kind of semi-Solomon. He half knows everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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03c. 1829 AD

To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late; And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods?

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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04c. 1829 AD

How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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05c. 1829 AD

These be the great Twin Brethren To whom the Dorians pray.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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06c. 1829 AD

The sweeter sound of woman's praise.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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07c. 1829 AD

Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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08Undated

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to every house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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09Undated

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 / quote

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10Undated

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 / quote

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11Undated

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

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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12Undated

An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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13Undated

Analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to portray, not to dissect.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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14Undated

Delusion may triumph, but the triumphs of delusion are but for a day.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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15Undated

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered, from the time of the seven sages of Greece to that of Poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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16Undated

Governments exist only for the good of the people.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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17Undated

Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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18Undated

Half the logic of misgovernment lies in this one sophistical dilemma: if the people are turbulent, they are unfit for liberty; if they are quiet, they do not want liberty.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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19Undated

He who is deficient in the art of selection may, by showing nothing but the truth, produce all the effect of the grossest falsehood. It perpetually happens that one writer tells less truth than another, merely because he tells more truth.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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20Undated

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

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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21Undated

In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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22Undated

In the works of many celebrated authors men are mere personifications. We have not a jealous man, but jealousy; not a traitor, but perfidy; not a patriot, but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative that personifications, when he dealt with them, became men.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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23Undated

It is a common error to think that in politics legislation is everything and administration nothing.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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24Undated

It is the nature of parties to retain their original enmities far more firmly than their original principles.

Thomas B. Macaulay / quote

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