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The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George (son-in-law of James II) served his turn. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim, Est il possible?-Is it possible?
Thomas B. Macaulay
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More quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay
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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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A government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves.
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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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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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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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The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.
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The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.
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