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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

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Thomas B. Macaulay
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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.
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The sweeter sound of woman's praise.
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We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.
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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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Thus, then, stands the case. It is good, that authors should be remunerated and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.
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In the modern languages there was not, six hundred years ago, a single volume which is now read. The library of our profound scholar must have consisted entirely of Latin books.
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Language is the machine of the poet.
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Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.
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That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.
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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!
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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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He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.
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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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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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A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.
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She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.
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Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.
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What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.
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It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern.
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