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Thomas Babington Macaulay

142 quotes

• “He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your neighbour's wife.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England’s praise; I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the purple sea, Such night in England ne’er had been, nor e’er again shall be.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “At once on all her stately gates arose the answering fires; At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling spires.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din, As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in; And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the warlike errand went, And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Till Belvoir’s lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent, And Lincoln sped the message on o’er the wide vale of Trent; Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt’s embattled pile, And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Lord Clive', The Edinburgh Review (January 1840), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. III (1843), p. 109

• “She [the Roman Catholic Church] may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Von Ranke', The Edinburgh Review (October 1840), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. III (1843), p. 209

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “She [the Catholic Church] thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Von Ranke', The Edinburgh Review (October 1840), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. III (1843), p. 237

• “The Chief Justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Warren Hastings', The Edinburgh Review (October 1841), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. III (1843), p. 391

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Warren Hastings', The Edinburgh Review (October 1841), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. III (1843), p. 465

• “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.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech on the Copyright Bill (5 February 1841)

• “Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the Catholic Association raised the cry of emancipation with most formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance they tried to put down the agitation.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Lord Holland', The Edinburgh Review (July 1841), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. III (1843), p. 314

• “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.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Macvey Napier (5 November 1841)

• “In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Frederic the Great', The Edinburgh Review (April 1842), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review: A New Edition (1852), p. 780

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking, and so grotesque, as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Frederic the Great', The Edinburgh Review (April 1842), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review: A New Edition (1852), p. 802

• “I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his Niece (15 September 1842)

• “He [Richard Steele] was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'The Life and Writings of Addison', The Edinburgh Review (July 1843), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review: A New Edition (1852), p. 704

• “The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'The Life and Writings of Addison', The Edinburgh Review (July 1843), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review: A New Edition (1852), p. 706

• “I would not give up the keys to the granary, because I know that, by doing so, I should turn scarcity into a famine.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1843 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sullivan, p. 266 (1843)

• “A man who has never been within the tropics does not know what a thunderstorm means; a man who has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; and he who has not read Barère's Memoirs may be said not to know what it is to lie.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1844 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'Barère', The Edinburgh Review (April 1844), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. II (1860), p. 109

• “If...we look at the essential characteristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other, of order. One is the moving power, and the other the steadying power of the state. One is the sail, without which society would make no progress, the other the ballast, without which there would be small safety in a tempest.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1844 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: 'The Earl of Chatham', The Edinburgh Review (October 1844), quoted in T. B. Macaulay, Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review: A New Edition (1852), p. 725

• “There you [Sir Robert Peel] sit, doing penance for the disingenuousness of years.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (14 April 1845)

• “Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Epitaph on a Jacobite (1845)

• “Time, and reflection, and discussion, have produced their natural effect on minds eminently intelligent and candid. No intermediate shades of opinion are now left. There is no twilight. The light has been divided from the darkness. Two parties are ranged in battle array against each other. There is the standard of monopoly. Here is the standard of free trade; and by the standard of free trade I pledge myself to stand firmly.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (2 December 1845), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 423

• “I say that where the public morality is concerned it may be the duty of the State to interfere with the contracts of individuals... It must then, I think, be admitted that, where health is concerned, and where morality is concerned, the State is justified in interfering with the contracts of individuals.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons in favour of John Fielden's bill for limiting the labour of young persons in factories to ten hours a day (22 May 1846), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (18…

• “The sweeter sound of woman's praise.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1847 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Lines written in August, 1847

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “At last I have attained true glory. As I walked through Fleet Street the day before yesterday, I saw a copy of Hume at a bookseller's window with the following label: “Only 2l. 2s. Hume's History of England in eight volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to Macaulay.” I laughed so convulsively that the other people who were staring at the books took me for a poor demented gentleman. Alas for poor David!”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Journal entry (8 March 1849), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), p. 253

• “Lars Porsena of Closium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it, And named a trysting day, And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west and south and north, To summon his array.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The harvests of Arretium, This year, old men shall reap; This year, young boys in Umbro Shall plunge the struggling sheep; And in the vats of Luna, This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods, And for the tender mother Who dandled him to rest, And for the wife who nurses His baby at her breast, And for the holy maidens Who feed the eternal flame, To save them from false Sextus That wrought the deed of shame?”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three. Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me?”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Then none was for a party, Then all were for the state; Then the rich 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. Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe; And the Tribunes beard the high and the fathers grind the low; As we wax hot in faction, In battle we wax cold; And men fight not as they fought In the brave days of old.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But hark! the cry is Astur: And lo! the ranks divide; And the great Lord of Luna Comes with his stately stride.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack; But those behind cried, "Forward!" And those before cried, "Back!”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber! To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, Take thou in charge this day!" So he spake, and speaking sheathed The good sword by his side, And with his harness on his back, Plunged headlong in the tide.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No sound of joy or sorrow Was heard from either bank; But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank; And when above the surges, They saw his crest appear, All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When the goodman mends his armor, And trims his helmet's plume; When the goodwife's shuttle merrily Goes flashing through the loom; With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Gay are the Martian Kalends, December's Nones are gay, But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides, Shall be Rome's whitest day.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “These be the great Twin Brethren To whom the Dorians pray.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay

• “From where the Witch's fortress O'er hangs the dark-blue seas; From the still glassy lake that sleeps Beneath Aricia's trees— Those trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign, The priest who slew the slayer, And shall himself be slain.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Let no man stop to plunder, But slay, and slay, and slay; The gods who live forever Are on our side to-day.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “On the left side goes Remus, With wrists and fingers red, And in his hand a boar-spear, And on the point a head— A wrinkled head and aged, With silver beard and hair, And holy fillets round it, Such as the pontiffs wear— The head of ancient Camers, Who spake the words of doom: "The children to the Tiber; The mother to the tomb.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But Coraggio – and think of A.D. 2850. Where will your Carlyles and Emersons be then? But Herodotus will still be read with delight. We must do our best to be read too.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Journal entry (12 January 1850), quoted in The Journals of Thomas Babington Macaulay: 18 November 1848–27 July 1850, ed. William Thomas (2008), p. 198

• “It is odd that the last twenty-five years which have witnessed the greatest progress ever made in physical science—the greatest victories ever achieved by mind over matter—should have produced hardly a volume that will be remembered in 1900.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Journal entry (9 March 1850), quoted in Thomas Macaulay, The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay: Volume 5, January 1849–December 1855, ed. Thomas Pinney (1981), p. 99

• “I think that good times are coming for the labouring classes of this country. I do not entertain that hope because I expect that Fourierism, or Saint Simonianism, or Socialism, or any of those other "isms" for which the plain English word is "robbery," will prevail. I know that such schemes only aggravate the misery which they pretend to relieve. I know that it is possible, by legislation, to make the rich poor, but that it is utterly impossible to make the poor rich.”

  Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (2 November 1852), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 517

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