212 Quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay

Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.

I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.

Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.

There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him; he changed his mind, and went to the oars.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

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.

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

No particular man is necessary to the state. We may depend on it that, if we provide the country with popular institutions, those institutions will provide it with great men.