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The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas B. Macaulay

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Thomas B. Macaulay
Bear
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Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle.
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A few more years will destroy whatever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron.
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The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it - The Territory is worth. Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little timely pruning.
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Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets whose works have come down to us were not mere imitators of foreign models and it is therefore the sort of composition in which they have never been excelled.
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We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
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In employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, we are only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself.
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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?
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All the walks of literature are infested with mendicants for fame, who attempt to excite our interest by exhibiting all the distortions of their intellects and stripping the covering from all the putrid sores of their feelings.
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I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.
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Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.
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It has often been found that profuse expenditures, heavy taxation, absurd commercial restrictions, corrupt tribunals, disastrous wars, seditions, persecutions, conflagrations, inundation, have not been able to destroy capital so fast as the exertions of private citizens have been able to create it.
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Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe!
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The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
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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?
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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.
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It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.
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Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,--endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity.
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The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.
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Then none was for a party Than all were for the state Then the great man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great: Then lands were fairly portioned Then spoils were fairly sold: The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.
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He had done that which could never be forgiven he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.
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