Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

• Alone stood brave Horatius, But constant still in mind; Thrice thirty thousand foes before, And the broad flood behind.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• With weeping and with laughter Still is the story told, How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• We hardly know any 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.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• The rugged miners poured to war from Medip’s sunless caves.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din, And fast from every village round the horse came spurring in.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• And even the ranks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• Lars Porsena of Clusium By the nine gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• Then, beneath the nine-tailed cat Shall they who use it writhe, sir; And curates lean, and rectors fat, Shall dig the ground they tithe, sir. Down with your Bayleys, and your Bests, Your Giffords, and your Gurneys; We’ll clear the island of the pests, Which mortals name attorneys.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• Many politicians lay it down as a self evident proposition that no people ought to be free until they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water until he had learned to swim.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• 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.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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• And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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  Tags in Better, Man, Die

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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Thomas Babington Macaulay (81)

Birth:	25th October, 1800
Death:	28th December, 1859
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Historian, Poet, Politician

About

Macaulay was the eldest child of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist and Selena Mills who was a former pupil of Hannah More. Thomas Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, England, where he was noted as a child prodigy.

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