Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas B. Macaulay
Always
Mass
Shown
Hand
Reaction
Depreciate
Whatever
Followed
Undue
Show
Excitement
Remission
Individual
Reactions
Rigor
Often
Extremes
Inclined
Shows
Individuals
Indulgence
Hands
Violent
Masses

More quotes by 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
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
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
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
Image
In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
With respect to the doctrine of a future life, a North American Indian knows just as much as any ancient or modern philosopher.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
The Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what the well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be contemplated without admiration.
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
The end of government is the happiness of the people.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
A kind of semi-Solomon, half-knowing everything, from the cedar to the hyssop.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
The perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which men seem incapable, but which is sometimes found in women.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Man is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his beliefs to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Image
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
Image
The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.
Thomas B. Macaulay