This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant. Thomas B. Macaulay More Quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay More Quotes From Thomas B. Macaulay No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right. Thomas B. Macaulay standards men world A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read. Thomas B. Macaulay pages volume I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history. Thomas B. Macaulay dignity historical bears 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 I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake; and I can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of God. Thomas B. Macaulay hippopotamus awake religion And 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? Thomas B. Macaulay liberty useless government History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable. Thomas B. Macaulay human-nature essentials historical The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets. Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second. Thomas B. Macaulay work life firsts The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little. Thomas B. Macaulay little-minds mind littles In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America. Thomas B. Macaulay lakes men order The business of everybody is the business of nobody. Thomas B. Macaulay business He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked. Thomas B. Macaulay deformity feet love From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness,-a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife. Thomas B. Macaulay hate love two That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Thomas B. Macaulay simple love book The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous. Thomas B. Macaulay rich justice quiet It is good to be often reminded of the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds. Thomas B. Macaulay weakness humanity mind We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. Thomas B. Macaulay outrage violent revolution Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors. Thomas B. Macaulay generations fashion age Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless. Thomas B. Macaulay grief meditation retirement What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant. Thomas B. Macaulay cant motive want
