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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.

Thomas B. Macaulay

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Thomas B. Macaulay
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More quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

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People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.
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In employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, we are only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself.
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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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As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.
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The perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which men seem incapable, but which is sometimes found in women.
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A church is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favored and cherished.
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Reform, that we may preserve.
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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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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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To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.
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The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.
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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.
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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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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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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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A government cannot be wrong in punishing fraud or force, but it is almost certain to be wrong if, abandoning its legitimate function, it tells private individuals that it knows their business better than they know it themselves.
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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.
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The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.
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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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Every sect clamors for toleration when it is down.
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