Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Pain

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Democracy

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Forget

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human Nature

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Story

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Mind

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Attack

• Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me?

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Stand

• Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: ‘To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his God?’

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Captain

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

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

• The history of England is emphatically the history of progress.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in History

• There was a time when the most powerful of human intellects were deluded by the gibberish of the astrologer and the alchemist… But time advances; facts accumulate; doubts arise… The highest intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch and to reflect the dawn.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Human

• A broken head in Cold Bath Fields produces a greater sensation among us than three pitched battles in India.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Sensation

• It is not easy to make a simile go on all fours.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Easy

• He knew that the essence of war is violence, and that moderation in war is imbecility.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War

• Dark and terrible beyond any season within my remembrance of political affairs was the day of their flight. Far darker and more terrible will be the day of their return.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Season

• In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Strange

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.

Related Authors

• Jacques Martin Barzun
• Terry Jones
• Timothy Garton Ash
• Paul Johnson
• George Woodcock
• Edward Everett Hale
• Vine Deloria Jr
• Nikolaus Pevsner
• Stephen Jay Gould
• Hippolyte Taine

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 1st January

Births

• 1826 - Robert Rainy
• 1946 - Shelby Steele
• 1768 - Maria Edgeworth
• 1819 - Philip Schaff
• 1954 - Robert Menendez

Deaths

• 1972 - Maurice Chevalier
• 2001 - Ray Walston
• 2002 - Julia Phillips
• 2007 - Tillie Olsen
• 2005 - Shirley Chisholm