Quote

The ascendency of the sacerdotal order was long the ascendency which naturally and properly belonged to intellectual superiority.

Thomas B. Macaulay

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas B. Macaulay
Belonged
Superiority
Properly
Naturally
Intellectual
Order
Long
Ascendency
Clergymen

More quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

Image
Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence where we have shown undue rigor.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
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
Image
Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
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
Image
There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack But those behind cried Forward! And those before cried Back!
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen and the gentlemen were not seamen.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces, and gardens and fine dinners, and wine, and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Grief, which disposes gentle natures to retirement, to inaction, and to meditation, only makes restless spirits more restless.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
We do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison let the vender prove it to be sanative.
Thomas B. Macaulay