Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

“to any government but that of philosophers and philanthropists.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the best governments which have ever existed in the world have been limited monarchies;”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“turned people who might have been thriving attorneys and useful apothecaries into small wits and bad poets.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“that imperfect substitute for virtue which is found in almost all superior minds, — a sensibility to the beautiful and the good,”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“invectives against the aristocrats with panegyrics on Brutus and Cato, — two aristocrats, fiercer, prouder, and more exclusive, than any that emigrated with the Count of Artois.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“that larger body of people who cared little about theories, and much about taxes.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“one of those periods which shine with an unnatural and delusive splendour, and which are rapidly followed by gloom and decay.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“there was not one moment at which any sanguinary act committed on the person of any of the most unpopular men in England would not have filled the country with horror and indignation.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“their fierce and senseless temerity. Demolition is undoubtedly a vulgar task; the highest glory of the statesman is to construct. But there is a time for everything, — a time to set up, and a time to pull down.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“The philosophers and philanthropists had reigned. And what had their reign produced? Philosophy had brought with it mummeries as absurd as any which had been practised by the most superstitious zealot of the darkest age. Philanthropy had brought with it crimes as horrible as the massacre of Saint Bartholomew.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the follies and vices of the people would frustrate all attempts to serve them.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“A pecuniary qualification we think absolutely necessary; and in settling its amount, our object would be to draw the line in such a manner that every decent farmer and shopkeeper might possess the elective franchise.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the subtilty of nature, in the moral as in the physical world, triumphs over the subtilty of syllogism.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“we stand on our undoubted logical right. We concede nothing; and we deny nothing. We say to the Utilitarian theorists: — When you prove your doctrine, we will believe it; and, till you prove it, we will not believe it.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“gradually sweep away taste, literature, science, commerce, manufactures, everything but the rude arts necessary to the support of animal life?”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the motives which impel the populace to spoliation. As for America, we appeal to the twentieth century.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the rich, in a democracy such as that which he recommends, would be pillaged as unmercifully as under a Turkish Pacha?”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“every generation in turn can gratify itself at the expense of posterity,”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the property of the rich minority can be made subservient to the pleasures of the poor majority”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“But why not the women too? This question has often been asked in parliamentary debate, and has never, to our knowledge, received a plausible answer.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“And nothing but the fear of resistance and the sense of shame preserves the freedom of the most democratic communities from the encroachments of their annual and biennial delegates.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“We must find some other means, therefore, of checking this check upon a check; some other prop to carry the tortoise, that carries the elephant, that carries the world.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the representatives, as soon as they are elected, are an aristocracy, with an interest opposed to the interest of the community?”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“A historian, such as we have been attempting to describe, would indeed be an intellectual prodigy. In his mind, powers scarcely compatible with each other must be tempered into an exquisite harmony.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the corruption of poetry would commence in the educated classes of society.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“filled the Cyclades with tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“The deliverers of Greece became its plunderers and oppressors. Unmeasured exaction, atrocious vengeance, the madness of the multitude, the tyranny of the great, filled the Cyclades with tears, and blood, and mourning. The sword unpeopled whole islands in a day.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“the author of “Soirees de Petersbourg” would be ashamed of some of the metaphysical arguments of Plato.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“Thus we see doctrines, which cannot bear a close inspection, triumph perpetually in drawing-rooms, in debating societies, and even in legislative or judicial assemblies.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay

“A man of letters must now read much that he soon forgets, and much from which he learns nothing worthy to be remembered.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Complete Works of Thomas Babington Macaulay