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

Categorized in : Government Distance Rome

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

Thomas B. Macaulay

inspiring integrity inspirational

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

Thomas B. Macaulay

law people enemy

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

Thomas B. Macaulay

kings desire book

Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.

Thomas B. Macaulay

government blessing country

A government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves.

Thomas B. Macaulay

individual force government

People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.

Thomas B. Macaulay

achievement pride people

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

race men people

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from 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 B. Macaulay

government humor people

Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.

Thomas B. Macaulay

government law peace

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

acquisition future age

Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.

Thomas B. Macaulay

mint advertising making-money

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

Thomas B. Macaulay

despots tyrants constitution

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.

Thomas B. Macaulay

portraits mixtures painting

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

god men father

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

abuse men art

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

Thomas B. Macaulay

money would-be law

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.

Thomas B. Macaulay

power-of-persuasion oratory persuasion

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

humanity self men

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 age men

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