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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 highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.
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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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The good-humor of a man elated with success often displays itself towards enemies.
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I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.
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The Orientals have another word for accident it is kismet,--fate.
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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.
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Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action it inspires no enthusiasm it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.
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We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents
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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.
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The upper current of society presents no pertain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows.
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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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Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.
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Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.
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The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character.
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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.
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Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second.
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What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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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
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Reform, that we may preserve.
Thomas B. Macaulay
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A single breaker may recede but the tide is evidently coming in.
Thomas B. Macaulay