Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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?
Thomas B. Macaulay
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Thomas B. Macaulay
Liberty
Opinion
Though
Governed
Society
Wisest
True
Useless
Government
Decide
Best
Whose
Ought
More quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay
This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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!
Thomas B. Macaulay
[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Those who seem to load the public taste are, in general, merely outrunning it in the direction which it is spontaneously pursuing.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.
Thomas B. Macaulay
The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.
Thomas B. Macaulay
We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents
Thomas B. Macaulay
This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another.
Thomas B. Macaulay
The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay
A single breaker may recede but the tide is evidently coming in.
Thomas B. Macaulay
In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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
Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.
Thomas B. Macaulay
That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Cut off my head, and singular I am, Cut off my tail, and plural I appear Although my middle's left, there's nothing there! What is my head cut off? A sounding sea What is my tail cut off? A rushing river And in their mingling depths I fearless play, Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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.
Thomas B. Macaulay