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Thomas Babington Macaulay

142 quotes

“I believe that the progress of experimental science, the free intercourse of nation with nation, the unrestricted influx of commodities from countries where they are cheap, and the unrestricted efflux of labour towards countries where it is dear, will soon produce, nay, I believe that they are beginning to produce, a great and most blessed social revolution.”
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
“Joe Hume talked to me very earnestly about the necessity of an union of Liberals. He said much about Ballot and the Franchise. I told him that I could easily come to some compromise with him and his friends on these matters, but that there were other questions about which I feared that there was an irreconcileable difference, particularly the vital question of national defence. He seemed quite confounded, and had absolutely nothing to say. I am fully determined to make them eat their words on that point, or to have no political connection with them.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (November 1852), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), p. 368
“Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to H.S. Randall, author of a Life of Thomas Jefferson (23 May 1857)
“Motley called. I like him much. We agree wonderfully well about slavery, and it is not often that I meet any person with whom I agree on that subject. For I hate slavery from the bottom of my soul; and yet I am made sick by the cant and the silly mock reasons of the Abolitionists. The nigger driver and the negrophile are two odious things to me. I must make Lady Macbeth's reservation: “Had he not resembled—”.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (8 July 1858), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume I (1876), p. 23, n. 1
“The only revolutions wh[ich] have turned out well have been defensive revolutions – ours of 1688 – the French of 1830 – the American was, to a great extent, of the same kind.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (29 December [1858]), quoted in Joseph Hamburger, 'Introduction', to Thomas Babington Macaulay, Napoleon and the Restoration of the Bourbons: The Completed Portion of Macaulay's Projected "History of Franc…
“The republicans who ruled France were inflamed by a fanaticism resembling that of the Mussulmans who, with the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other, went forth, conquering and converting, eastward to the Bay of Bengal, and westward to the Pillars of Hercules.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'William Pitt', Encyclopædia Britannica (January 1859), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. II (1860), p. 350
“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.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles II. But the seamen were not gentlemen, and the gentlemen were not seamen.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Thomas B. 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 (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Thomas B. Macaulay
“The ambassador [of Russia] and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To have been a Sovereign, yet the champion of liberty,—a revolutionary leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of William. Till his accession the British Constitution was in its Chaos. It had contained, from a very remote period, the simple elements of an harmonious government. But they were in a state not of amalgamation, but of conflict,—not of equilibrium but of alternate elevation and depression. The tyranny of Charles the first produced civil war and anarchy. Tyranny had now again produced resistance and revolution. And, but for the wisdom of the new King, it seems probable that the same cycle of misery would have been again described.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1822 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Essay on the Life and Character of King William III' (1822), written for the Greaves Historical Prize at Cambridge, quoted in The Times Literary Supplement (1 May 1969), p. 469
“It is surely delightful, Sir, to look forward to that period when a series of liberal and prudent measures shall have delivered islands, so highly favoured by the bounty of Providence, from the curse inflicted on them by the frantic rapacity of man. Then the peasant of the Antilles will no longer crawl in listless and trembling dejection round a plantation from whose fruits he must derive no advantage, and a hut whose door yields him no protection; but, when his cheerful and voluntary labour is performed, he will return with the firm step and erect brow of a British citizen from the field which is his freehold to the cottage which is his castle.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1824 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society held in Freemasons' Tavern (25 June 1824), quoted in Report of the Committee of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Domi…
“We have classical associations and great names of our own which we can confidently oppose to the most splendid of ancient times. Senate has not to our ears a sound so venerable as Parliament. We respect the Great Charter more than the laws of Solon. The Capitol and the Forum impress us with less awe than our own Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey... The list of warriors and statesmen by whom our constitution was founded or preserved, from De Montfort down to Fox, may well stand a comparison with the Fasti of Rome. The dying thanksgiving of Sydney is as noble as the libation which Thrasea poured to Liberating Jove: and we think with far less pleasure of Cato tearing out his entrails than of Russell saying, as he turned away from his wife, that the bitterness of death was past.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'History', The Edinburgh Review (May 1828), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I (1860), p. 252
“Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the despotism of St. Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in some hypothetical case, be the best possible.”
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“If we consider merely the subtlety of disquisition, the force of imagination, the perfect energy and elegance of expression, which characterise the great works of Athenian genius, we must pronounce them intrinsically most valuable; but what shall we say when we reflect that from hence have sprung, directly or indirectly, all the noblest creations of the human intellect; that from hence were the vast accomplishments, and the brilliant fancy of Cicero; the withering fire of Juvenal; the plastic imagination of Dante; the humour of Cervantes; the comprehension of Bacon; the wit of Butler; the supreme and universal excellence of Shakspeare? All the triumphs of truth and genius over prejudice and power, in every country and in every age, have been the triumphs of Athens. Wherever a few great minds have made a stand against violence and fraud, in the cause of liberty and reason, there has been her spirit in the midst of them; inspiring, encouraging, consoling.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Turn where we may,—within,—around,—the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while every thing at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age,—now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the continent is still resounding in our ears,—now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings,—now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved,—now, while the heart of England is still sound,—now, while the old feelings and the old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away,—now, in this your accepted time,—now in this your day of salvation,—take counsel, not of prejudice,—not of party spirit,—not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency,—but of history,—of reason,—of the ages which are past,—of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great Debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by their own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this Bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing regret, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1831) in favour of the Reform Bill
“Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I never saw, and never expect to see again... It was like seeing Caesar stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Oliver taking the mace from the table; a sight to be seen only once, and never to be forgotten... [Y]ou might have heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shouts broke out, and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. And the jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned soul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off for the last operation. We shook hands, and clapped each other on the back, and went out laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby... I called a cabriolet, and the first thing the driver asked was, “Is the Bill carried?” “Yes, by one.” “Thank God for it, Sir.” And away I rode to Gray's Inn,—and so ended a scene which will probably never be equalled till the reformed Parliament wants reforming; and that I hope will not be till the days of our grandchildren, till that truly orthodox and apostolical person Dr. Francis Ellis is an archbishop of eighty.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the passage of the Reform Bill; letter to Ellis (30 March 1831); in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Vol. I (1876), pp. 201–204
“Let us remember that the government and the society act and react on each other. Sometimes the government is in advance of the society, and hurries the society forward. So urged, the society gains on the government, comes up with the government, outstrips the government, and begins to insist that the government shall make more speed. If the government is wise, it will yield to that just and natural demand. The great cause of revolutions is this, that, while nations move onward, constitutions stand still. The peculiar happiness of England is that here, through many generations, the constitution has moved onward with the nation.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (5 July 1831); in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 25
“Remember Ireland. Remember how, in that country, concessions too long delayed were at last received. That great boon which in 1801, in 1813, in 1825, would have won the hearts of millions, given too late, and given from fear, only produced new clamours and new dangers. Is not one such lesson enough for one generation? A noble Lord opposite told us not to expect that this bill will have a conciliatory effect. Recollect, he said, how the French aristocracy surrendered their privileges in 1789, and how that surrender was requited. Recollect that Day of Sacrifices which was afterwards called the Day of Dupes. Sir, that day was afterwards called the Day of Dupes, not because it was the Day of Sacrifices, but because it was the Day of Sacrifices too long deferred. It was because the French aristocracy resisted reform in 1783, that they were unable to resist revolution in 1789. It was because they clung too long to odious exemptions and distinctions, that they were at last unable to save their lands, their mansions, their heads. They would not endure Turgot: and they had to endure Robespierre.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (5 July 1831); in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 34
“No doubt a tumult caused by local and temporary irritation ought to be suppressed with promptitude and vigour. Such disturbances, for example, as those which Lord George Gordon raised in 1780, should be instantly put down with the strong hand. But woe to the Government which cannot distinguish between a nation and a mob! Woe to the Government which thinks that a great, a steady, a long continued movement of the public mind is to be stopped like a street riot! This error has been twice fatal to the great House of Bourbon. God be praised, our rulers have been wiser. The golden opportunity which, if once suffered to escape, might never have been retrieved, has been seized. Nothing, I firmly believe, can now prevent the passing of this noble law, this second Bill of Rights.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (5 July 1831); in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), pp. 34-35
“I speak of that great party which zealously and steadily supported the first Reform Bill, and which will, I have no doubt, support the second Reform Bill with equal steadiness and equal zeal. That party is the middle class of England, with the flower of the aristocracy at its head, and the flower of the working classes bringing up its rear. That great party has taken its immovable stand between the enemies of all order and the enemies of all liberty. It will have Reform: it will not have revolution: it will destroy political abuses: it will not suffer the rights of property to be assailed: it will preserve, in spite of themselves, those who are assailing it, from the right and from the left, with contradictory accusations: it will be a daysman between them: it will lay its hand upon them both: it will not suffer them to tear each other in pieces.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1831 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Reform Bill (16 December 1831); in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), p. 76
“Other countries have obtained deliverances equally signal and complete, but in no country has that deliverance been obtained with such perfect peace; so entirely within the bounds of the Constitution; with all the forms of law observed; the government of the country proceeding in its regular course; every man going forth unto his labour until the evening. France boasts of her three days of July, when her people rose, when barricades fenced the streets, and the entire population of the capital in arms successfully vindicated their liberties. They boast, and justly, of those three days of July; but I will boast of our ten days of May. We, too, fought a battle, but it was with moral arms. We, too, placed an impassable barrier between ourselves and military tyranny; but we fenced ourselves only with moral barricades. Not one crime committed, not one acre confiscated, not one life lost, not one instance of outrage or attack on the authorities or the laws. Our victory has not left a single family in mourning. Not a tear, not a drop of blood, has sullied the pacific and blameless triumph of a great people.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to his committee at Leeds after the Reform Bill had received the Royal assent (1832), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume I (1876), pp. 283–284
“All the great English revolutions have been conducted by practical statesmen. The French Revolution was conducted by mere speculators. Our constitution has never been so far behind the age as to have become an object of aversion to the people. The English revolutions have therefore been undertaken for the purpose of defending, correcting, and restoring,—never for the mere purpose of destroying. Our countrymen have always, even in times of the greatest excitement, spoken reverently of the form of government under which they lived, and attacked only what they regarded as its corruptions. In the very act of innovating they have constantly appealed to ancient prescription; they have seldom looked abroad for models; they have seldom troubled themselves with Utopian theories; they have not been anxious to prove that liberty is a natural right of men; they have been content to regard it as the lawful birthright of Englishmen. Their social contract is no fiction. It is still extant on the original parchment, sealed with wax which was affixed at Runnymede, and attested by the lordly names of the Marischals and Fitzherberts. No general arguments about the original equality of men, no fine stories out of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos, have ever affected them so much as their own familiar words,—Magna Charta,—Habeas Corpus,—Trial by Jury,—Bill of Rights.”
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Recorded in: 'Mirabeau', The Edinburgh Review (July 1832); in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. II (1860), pp. 97-98
“'It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation among the vast population of the East. It would be, on the most selfish view of the case, far better for us that the people of India were well governed and independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than that they were performing their salams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures. To trade with civilised men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages. That would, indeed, be a doting wisdom, which, in order that India might remain a dependency, would make it an useless and costly dependency, which would keep a hundred millions of men from being our customers in order that they might continue to be our slaves.'”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1833 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From his Speech in Parliament on the Government of India Bill, 10 July 1833. Quoted from Koenraad Elst, The Argumentative Hindu (2012) Chapter 3
“In the course of seven centuries the wretched and degraded race have become the greatest and most highly civilised people that ever the world saw, have spread their dominion over every quarter of the globe, have scattered the seeds of mighty empires and republics over vast continents of which no dim intimation had ever reached Ptolemy or Strabo, have created a maritime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa together, have carried the science of healing, the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical art, every manufacture, every thing that promotes the convenience of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would have thought magical, have produced a literature which may boast of works not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, have discovered the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, have speculated with exquisite subtilty on the operations of the human mind, have been the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the career of political improvement. The history of England is the history of this great change in the moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants of our own island.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1835 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'Sir James Mackintosh', The Edinburgh Review (July 1835); in Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. II (1843), pp. 226-227
“I conceive that the Act is good in itself... The strongest reason...for passing it is the nature of the opposition which it has experienced. The organs of that opposition repeated every day that the English were the conquerors, and the lords of the country, the dominant race... The firmness with which the Government withstood the idle outcry of two or three hundred people...was designated as insolent defiance of public opinion. We were enemies of freedom, because we would not suffer a small white aristocracy to domineer over millions. How utterly at variance these principles are with reason, with justice, with the honour of the British Government, and with the dearest interests of the Indian people, it is unnecessary for me to point out. For myself, I can only say that, if the Government is to be conducted on such principles, I am utterly disqualified, by all my feelings and opinions, from bearing any part in it, and cannot too soon resign my place to some person better fitted to hold it.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1836 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Minute on the "Black Act" of 1836, which put Europeans under jurisdiction of the Sadr Diwani Adalat (c. 1838), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume I (1876), pp. 399–400
“To the Whigs of the seventeenth century we owe it that we have a House of Commons. To the Whigs of the nineteenth century we owe it that the House of Commons has been purified. The abolition of the slave trade, the abolition of colonial slavery, the extension of popular education, the mitigation of the rigour of the penal code, all, all were effected by that party; and of that party, I repeat, I am a member. I look with pride on all that the Whigs have done for the cause of human freedom and of human happiness. I see them now hard pressed, struggling with difficulties, but still fighting the good fight. At their head I see men who have inherited the spirit and the virtues, as well as the blood, of old champions and martyrs of freedom... While one shred of the old banner is flying, by that banner will I at least be found.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (29 May 1839), quoted in Speeches of the Right Honourable T. B. Macaulay, M.P. (1854), pp. 183-184
“I feel this more strongly than perhaps others may, arising from peculiar circumstances in the history of my own mind; for I can say that, as far back as I can remember, books have been to me dear friends; they have been my comfort in grief, and my companions in solitude;—in poverty they have been to me more than sufficient riches;—in exile they have been my consolation for the want of my country;—in the midst of vexations and distresses of political life,—in the midst of political contention and strife,—of calumny and invective,—they have contributed to keep my mind serene and unclouded. There is, I may well say, no wealth,—there is no power,—there is no rank which I would accept, if in exchange I were to be deprived of my books,—of the privilege of conversing with the greatest minds of all past ages;—of searching after the truth;—of contemplating the beautiful;—of living with the distant, the unreal, the past, and the future. Knowing, as I do, what it is to enjoy these pleasures myself, I do not grudge them to the labouring men who, by their honourable, independent, and gallant efforts, have advanced themselves within their reach; and, owing all that I owe to the soothing influences of literature, I should be ashamed of myself if I grudged the same advantages to them.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1839 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Edinburgh (2 September 1839), quoted in Report of a Public Entertainment held in the Waterloo Rooms on Monday, Sept. 2, by the Edinburgh Mechanics' Library; in which T. B. Macaulay, Esq., M.P. for the city, th…
“It is evident that many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by cooperation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient cooperation if men proceed on the principle that they must not cooperate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than the facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a single point, can combine their energies for the purpose of carrying that single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of them obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of a missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital, and heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients. Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster’s schools, meet at the Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and expedient for men to unite in an association for the promotion of a good object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still higher importance.”
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Recorded in: Gladstone on Church and State (Edinburgh Review, April, 1839)
“In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general views I am opposed. I feel with them, that 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; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. 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 (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed, both here and at home, with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the oriental learning at the valuation of the orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is indeed fully admitted by those members of the committee who support the oriental plan of education.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And I certainly never met with any orientalist who ventured to maintain that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the great European nations. But when we pass from works of imagination to works in which facts are recorded and general principles investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy, the relative position of the two nations is nearly the same.”
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“I hold agitation to be essential, not only to the obtaining of good and just measures, but to the existence of a free Government itself. If you choose to adopt the principle of Bishop Horsley, that the people have nothing to do with the laws but to obey them, then, indeed, you may deprecate agitation; but, while we live in a free country, and under a free Government, your deprecation is vain and untenable... I say that the slave-trade would never have been abolished without agitation. I say that slavery would never have been abolished without agitation... What is agitation when it is examined, but the mode in which the people in the great outer assembly debate?”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (29 January 1840)
“It was natural that they should look with confidence on the victorious flag which was hoisted over them, which reminded them that they belonged to a country unaccustomed to defeat, to submission, or to shame—it reminded them that they belonged to a country which had made the farthest ends of the earth ring with the fame of her exploits in redressing the wrongs of her children; that made the Dey of Algiers humble himself to her insulted consul; that revenged the horrors of the black hole on the fields of Plessey; that had not degenerated since her great Protector vowed that he would make the name of Englishman as respected as ever had been the name of Roman citizen. They felt that although far from their native country, and then in danger in a part of the world remote from that to which they must look for protection, yet that they belonged to a state which would not suffer a hair of one of its members to be harmed with impunity.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the First Opium War (7 April 1840)
“Then the Quakers, five in number. Never was there such a rout. They had absolutely nothing to say. Every charge against Penn came out as clear as any case at the Old Bailey. They had nothing to urge but what was true enough, that he looked worse in my History than he would have looked on a general survey of his whole life. But that is not my fault. I wrote the History of four years during which he was exposed to great temptations; during which he was the favourite of a bad king, and an active solicitor in a most corrupt court. His character was injured by his associations. Ten years before, or ten years later, he would have made a much better figure. But was I to begin my book ten years earlier or ten years later for William Penn's sake? The Quakers were extremely civil. So was I. They complimented me on my courtesy and candour.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Journal entry (5 February 1849), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), pp. 251–252
“I finished the Iliad to-day... I never admired the old fellow so much, or was so strongly moved by him. What a privilege genius like his enjoys! I could not tear myself away. I read the last five books at a stretch during my walk to-day, and was at last forced to turn into a bypath, lest the parties of walkers should see me blubbering for imaginary beings, the creations of a ballad-maker who has been dead two thousand seven hundred years. What is the power and glory of Caesar and Alexander to that? Think what it would be to be assured that the inhabitants of Monomotapa would weep over one's writings Anno Domini 4551!”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1851 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to his niece Margaret (August 1851), quoted in George Otto Trevelyan, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, Volume II (1876), pp. 186-187
“The madness of 1848 did not subvert the British throne. The reaction which followed has not destroyed British liberty. And why is this? Why has our country, with all the ten plagues raging around her, been a land of Goshen? Everywhere else was the thunder, and the fire running along the ground,—a very grievous storm,—a storm such as there was none like it since man was on the earth; yet everything tranquil here; and then again thick night, darkness that might be felt; and yet light in all our dwellings. We owe this singular happiness, under the blessing of God, to a wise and noble constitution, the work of many generations of great men. Let us profit by experience; and let us be thankful that we profit by the experience of others, and not by our own. Let us prize our constitution: let us purify it: let us amend it; but let us not destroy it. Let us shun extremes, not only because each extreme is in itself a positive evil, but also because each extreme necessarily engenders its opposite. If we love civil and religious freedom, let us in the day of danger uphold law and order. If we are zealous for law and order, let us prize, as the best safeguard of law and order, civil and religious freedom.”
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. 507
“That noble Lord is of opinion, not only that we ought to exclude Natives from office, but that even by encouraging them to study the arts and learning of Europe, we are preparing the way for the utter destruction of our power in India. I must leave it to the noble Lord to explain what seems to me a rather singular inconsistency in his opinion. I am at a loss to understand how, while utterly contemning education when it is given to Europeans, he should regard it with dread when it is given to Natives. This training, we are told, when given to a European, makes him a bookworm, a twaddler, a man unfit for the active duties of life; but give the same education to the Hindoo, and it arms him with such an accession of intellectual power, that an established government, with an army of 250,000 men, backed by the whole army and navy of England, are to go down inevitably before its irresistible power.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1853 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 June 1853)
“He [William Pitt the Younger] should have proclaimed a Holy War for religion, morality, property, order, public law, and should have thus opposed to the Jacobins an energy equal to their own. Unhappily he tried to find a middle path; and he found one which united all that was worst in both extremes. He went to war: but he would not understand the peculiar character of that war. He was obstinately blind to the plain fact, that he was contending against a state which was also a sect, and that the new quarrel between England and France was of quite a different kind from the old quarrels about colonies in America and fortresses in the Netherlands.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'William Pitt', Encyclopædia Britannica (January 1859), quoted in The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay, Vol. II (1860), p. 351
“The Chief Justice was all himself. His spirits rose higher and higher as the work went on. He laughed, shouted, joked, and swore in such a way that many thought him drunk from morning to night. But in him it was not easy to distinguish the madness produced by evil passions from the madness produced by brandy. A prisoner affirmed that the witnesses who appeared against him were not entitled to credit. One of them, he said, was a Papist, and another a prostitute. "Thou impudent rebel," exclaimed the Judge, "to reflect on the King's evidence! I see thee, villain, I see thee already with the halter round thy neck." Another produced testimony that he was a good Protestant. "Protestant!" said Jeffreys; "you mean Presbyterian. I'll hold you a wager of it. I can smell a Presbyterian forty miles." One wretched man moved the pity even of bitter Tories. "My Lord," they said, "this poor creature is on the parish." "Do not trouble yourselves," said the Judge, "I will ease the parish of the burden.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown... Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And, if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our houses, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.”
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859) said by 1859 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source