244 Quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

... 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.

No man who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

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?"

I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.

Every sect clamors for toleration when it is down.

Beards in olden times, were the emblems of wisdom and piety.

It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.

To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.

This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another.