212 Quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.

The more carefully we examine the history of the past, the more reason shall we find to dissent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils. The truth is that the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old. That which is new is the intelligence which discerns and the humanity which remedies them.

Then none was for a party;Then all were for the state;Then the great man helped the poor,And the poor man loved the great;Then lands were fairly proportioned;Then spoils were fairly sold;The Romans were like brothersIn the brave days of old.

Pour, varlet, pour the waterThe water steaming hot!A spoonful for each man of usAnother for the pot!

At a dinner which a wealthy Alderman gave to some of the leading members of the government, the Lord Treasurer and the Lord Chancellor were so drunk that they stripped themselves almost stark naked, and were with difficulty prevented from climbing up a signpost to drink His Majesty's health.

Then none was for a party;Then all were for the state;Then the great man helped the poor,And the poor man loved the great:Then lands were fairly portioned;Then spoils were fairly sold:The Romans were like brothersIn the brave days of old.

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.