Thomas Macaulay Quotes (17 Quotes)

Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical.

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

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.

More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning

The history of England is emphatically the history of progress.

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 the house of mourning, in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave.

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

Charles V said that a man who knew four languages was worth four men and Alexander the Great so valued learning, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge that, than his father Philip for giving him life.

A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.

We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents.

We have heard it said that five per cent is the natural interest of money.

The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth.

Oh, wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout And whence be the grapes of the wine-press which ye tread

Thus our democracy was, from an early period, the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world.

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilization, or both

In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three

Now who will stand on either hand And keep the bridge with me