J. C. Macaulay Quotes

I did a radio interview for a station in Connecticut or something, and it was the worst interview ever. It was all yes and no answers.

I had all the fame anyone could want, and I ran away from it.

I have a lot of growing up to do, or a lot of growing down. I think that's probably more appropriate.

We are the children of the earth and removed from her our spirit withers.

I don't even know how to define myself. I'm a person who writes. It's something I enjoy, and hopefully people enjoy it as well.

A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false.

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

A man who should act, for one day, on the supposition that all the people about him were influenced by the religion which they professed would find himself ruined by night.

He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.

The Orientals have another word for accident; it is "kismet,"--fate.

A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.

The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George (son-in-law of James II) served his turn. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim, "Est il possible?"-"Is it possible?"

The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman.

Math is one of my favorite subjects.

Age has extremely little to do with anything that matters. The difference between one age and another is, as a rule, enormously exaggerated.

That wonderful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it.

There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.

He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.

It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.

We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.

This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another.

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.

By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors.

That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things.

Our judgment ripens; our imagination decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers of the Spring of life and the fruits of its Autumn.

I went to high school, which was a good thing because I hadn't interacted with many people my age, and I didn't really have friends. I had a million acquaintances and no friends.

We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,--and that is not only true, but identical,--that men always act from self-interest.

I'm not one of those actors who needs the media spotlight all the time to feel gratified. I'm happy to do one project a year and take the rest of the year off as long as that project is special.

It's about finding unique, one-of-a-kind films that I would want to see myself. I think Party Monster is one of those.

It is good to pray for the repair of mistakes, but praying earlier would keep us from making so many. When puzzled, go to prayer and listen.

Never allow your own sorrow to absorb you, but seek out another to console, and you will find consolation.

Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

I'd made enough made money by the time I was 12 to never work again, so it's not about a big pay check with me.

The manuscript may go forth from the writer to return with a faithfulness passing the faithfulness of the boomerang or the homing pigeon.

I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.

Reform, that we may preserve.

History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable.

A system in which the two great commandments are to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife.

The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn.

I don't mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.

The English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good.

She thoroughly understands what no other Church has ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts.

Everybody's business is nobody's business.

The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it - The Territory is worth. Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little timely pruning.