Thomas B. Macaulay
Thomas B. Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, PCwas a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist and reviewer; his books on British history have been hailed as literary masterpieces. He was a member of the Babington family by virtue of his aunt's marriage to Thomas Babington...
government liberty may
It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.
men justice wicked
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.
hate love-you two
A system in which the two great commandments are to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife.
lying silence mind
In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall.
liberty together election
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.
believe fall government
The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?
men liberty settling
Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.
liberty useless opinion
And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?
community liberty may
There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.
writing mathematics abomination
[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.
aging rivalry
With the dead there is no rivalry, with the dead there is no change.
trust doctrine public-trust
The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good.
honor groups conflict
The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.
may reform preserves
Reform, that we may preserve.