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...
rakes scholar
He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.
tides may tidy
A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.
civilization poetry decline
As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.
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.
spring flower fall
Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers of the Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn.
pain religion bears
The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.
poetry age genius
We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.
latin poet satire
Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets whose works have come down to us were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore the sort of composition in which they have never been excelled.
destiny men age
What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man!-To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion! To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity; to be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries!
strength character blue
We hardly know an instance of the strength and weakness of human nature so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other.
succeed bears dignity
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.
historical use nations
The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.
bridges brave bravery
How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.
justice quiet rich
The chief-justice was rich, quiet, and infamous.