Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay quotes
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859): British historian and politician. The library holds 84 quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, drawn from On Mitford’s History of Greece, On John Dryden, History of England and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
With the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulant. Demosthenes never comes unseasonably. Dante never stays too long.
There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind, and went to the oars.
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.
The law has no eyes, the law has no hands, the law is nothing—nothing but a piece of paper, till public opinion breathes the breath of life into the dead letter.
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.
His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy land, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche.
By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colors.
The 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.
If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.
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.
This is the highest miracle of genius: that things which are not should be as though they were; that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another.
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.
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.
Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain; wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,—there is exhibited in its noblest form the immortal influence of Athens.
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.