American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods? – Thomas Babington Macaulay
We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the 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. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close, and rendering it portable. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best? – Thomas Babington Macaulay
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 Babington Macaulay
To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world. – Thomas Babington Macaulay
