Thomas Babington Macaulay quotes - page 5

Thomas Babington Macaulay was a British historian, essayist, and politician, renowned for his works on British history and literature. His "History of England" and influential essays have shaped perspectives on Victorian society and government. He played a significant role in education reform and the introduction of English education in India. Here are 123 of his quotes:

To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

Thomas Babington Macaulay

It would be, on the most selfish view of the case, far better for us that the people of India were well governed and independent of us, than ill governed and subject to us; that they were ruled by their own kings, but wearing our broadcloth, and working with our cutlery, than that they were performing their salams to English collectors and English magistrates, but were too ignorant to value, or too poor to buy, English manufactures. To trade with civilised men is infinitely more profitable than to govern savages.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in the country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

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 gods.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

It is my firm belief that if our plans of education are followed up, there will not be a single idolator among the respectable classes of Bengal thirty years hence.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

It is impossible for us, with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern,-a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

At last I have attained true glory. As I walked through Fleet Street the day before yesterday, I saw a copy of Hume at a bookseller's window with the following label: "Only 2l. 2s. Hume's History of England in eight volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to Macaulay.”.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of men must have images. The strong tendency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained on no other principle.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf... For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine and it will then be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

This is the best book ever written by any man on the wrong side of a question of which he is profoundly ignorant.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

He had a wonderful talent for packing thought close, and rendering it portable.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Generalization is necessary to the advancement of knowledge, but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Joe Hume talked to me very earnestly about the necessity of an union of Liberals. He said much about Ballot and the Franchise. I told him that I could easily come to some compromise with him and his friends on these matters, but that there were other questions about which I feared that there was an irreconcileable difference, particularly the vital question of national defence. He seemed quite confounded, and had absolutely nothing to say. I am fully determined to make them eat their words on that point, or to have no political connection with them.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are moreover so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Then none was for a party, Then all were for the state; Then the rich man helped the poor, And the poor man loved the great; Then lands were fairly portioned, Then spoils were fairly sold; The Romans were like brothers In the brave days of old.Now Roman is to Roman More hateful than a foe; And the Tribunes beard the high and the fathers grind the low; As we wax hot in faction, In battle we wax cold; And men fight not as they fought In the brave days of old.

Thomas Babington Macaulay