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...
pages volume
A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.
dominant
A dominant religion is never ascetic.
democracy aristocracy periods
Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.
envy sin despise
More sinners are cursed at not because we despise their sins but because we envy their success at sinning.
hands creation priests
Nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.
wages tests england
But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams; and, in those Manchesters and Birminghams, hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test.
passion men play
In the plays of Shakespeare man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn.
greatness men age
It is the age that forms the man, not the man that forms the age.
greatness mind pay
Great minds do indeed react on the society which has made them what they are; but they only pay with interest what they have received.
reading criticism body
The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to criticize.
criticism may poet
In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.
counting sects
The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.
sunday should-have people
If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.
party men looks
Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.