244 Quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

The perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which men seem incapable, but which is sometimes found in women.

In Plato's opinion, man was made for philosophy; in Bacon's opinion, philosophy was made for man.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will assuredly do the rest.

Genius is subject to the same laws which regulate the production of cotton and molasses.

That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.

When the great Kepler bad at length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed: "Whether my discoveries will be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is a matter that concerns them more than me. I may well be contented to wait one century for a reader, when God Himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an observer like myself.

The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.

What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,--and that is not only true, but identical,--that men always act from self-interest.