Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes - Page 8

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.

Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!

A beggarly people, A church and no steeple.

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

Lars Porsena of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrongs no more.

Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,--endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity.

If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazzle, at any cost, which produces affectation in the manner of a writer, is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings.

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

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.

The Orientals have another word for accident; it is "kismet,"--fate.

Queen Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about elopements, duels, and play debts, by asking the tattlers, very quietly yet significantly, whether they had ever read her favorite sermon--Dr. Tillotson on Evil Speaking.

It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse.

Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.

We do not think it necessary to prove that a quack medicine is poison; let the vender prove it to be sanative.

We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

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.

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

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.

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.

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.

The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George (son-in-law of James II) served his turn. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim, "Est il possible?"-"Is it possible?"