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What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,--and that is not only true, but identical,--that men always act from self-interest.

Thomas B. Macaulay

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Thomas B. Macaulay
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The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.
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Byron owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry.
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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.
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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.
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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 man who should act, for one day, on the supposition that all the people about him were influenced by the religion which they professed would find himself ruined by night.
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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!
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Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.
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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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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.
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The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
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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.
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A single breaker may recede but the tide is evidently coming in.
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The English Bible - a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions.
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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.
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