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It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.

Thomas B. Macaulay

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Thomas B. Macaulay
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More quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

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Beards in olden times, were the emblems of wisdom and piety.
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In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.
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He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.
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It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools in England.
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No man in the world acts up to his own standard of right.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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In every age the vilest specimens of human nature are to be found among demagogues.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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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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We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents
Thomas B. Macaulay
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The temple of silence and reconciliation.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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In the plays of Shakespeare man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn.
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Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.
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He had done that which could never be forgiven he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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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.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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Reform, that we may preserve.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack But those behind cried Forward! And those before cried Back!
Thomas B. Macaulay
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In the modern languages there was not, six hundred years ago, a single volume which is now read. The library of our profound scholar must have consisted entirely of Latin books.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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By poetry we mean the art of employing of 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.
Thomas B. Macaulay