J. C. Macaulay Quotes

In perseverance, in self command, in forethought, in all virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed.

Ambrose Phillips . . . who had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby.

Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear O'er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

Was none who would be foremost To lead such dire attack; But those behind cried "Forward!" And those before cried "Back!

[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must first become a little child.

So true it is, that nature has caprices which art cannot imitate.

He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave.

In the modern languages there was not, six hundred years ago, a single volume which is now read. The library of our profound scholar must have consisted entirely of Latin books.

Language is the machine of the poet.

The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution.

The end of government is the happiness of the people.

Sense can support herself handsomely in most countries on some eighteen pence a day; but for fantasy, planets and solar systems, will not suffice.

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.

Temple was a man of the world amongst men of letters, a man of letters amongst men of the world.

There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.

Scotland by no means escaped the fate ordained for every country which is connected, but not incorporated, with another country of greater resources.

There is no country in Europe which is so easy to over-run as Spain; there is no country which it is more difficult to conquer.

If ever Shakespeare rants, it is not when his imagination is hurrying him along, but when he is hurrying his imagination along.

Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,--endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity.

The effective strength of sects is not to be ascertained merely by counting heads.

In truth it may be laid down as an almost universal rule that good poets are bad critics.

Education...has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

Enlarged sympathy with children was one of the chief contributions made by the Victorian English to real civilization.

Pour, varlet, pour the waterThe water steaming hot!A spoonful for each man of usAnother for the pot!

The dust and silence of the upper shelf.

The art of making much show with little substance.

Nothing perhaps is strange once you have accepted life itself the great strange business which includes all lesser strangeness.

His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run though not to soar.

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

The object of oratory is not truth but persuasion.

The object of oratory alone is not truth but persuasion.

American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.

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