244 Quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay

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

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

Even Holland and Spain have been positively, though not relatively, advancing.

Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.

How it chanced that a man who reasoned on his premises so ably, should assume his premises so foolishly, is one of the great mysteries of human nature.

Re: Robert Montgomery's Poems His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. There are colours in the Turkey carpet out of which a picture might be made. There are words in Mr. Montgomery's writing which, when disposed in certain orders and combinations,have made, and will make again, good poetry. But, as they now stand, they seem to be put together on principle in such a manner as to give no image of anything in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.