Top 180 Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “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

Featured in: Fighting Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Sacrifice Quotes, Hero Quotes

2. “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

Featured in: Integrity Quotes, Morality Quotes, Deep Quotes, Quotes About People, Reputation Quotes

3. “Half-knowledge is worse than ignorance.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

4. “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 gods.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

5. “Everybody’s business is nobody’s business.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

6. “Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

7. “Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

Featured in: Making Money Quotes

8. “How well Horatius kept the bridge In the brave days of old.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

9. “Western literature has been more influenced by the Bible than any other book.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

11. “The great cause of revolutions is this, that while nations move onward, constitutions stand still.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

13. “A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

14. “A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

15. “Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

17. “People who take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

18. “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.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

19. “He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

20. “We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days. But so said all before us, and with just as much apparent reason.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

21. “Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

22. “Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

23. “Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

24. “Even the law of gravitation would be brought into dispute were there a pecuniary interest involved.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

25. “The Saviour of mankind Himself, in whose blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, has been called in question for words spoken.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

26. “Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school – its abstract doctrines for the initiated; its visible symbols, its imposing forms, its mythological fables, for the vulgar.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

27. “In after-life you may have friends – fond, dear friends; but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

28. “Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

29. “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.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

30. “The perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which men seem incapable, but which is sometimes found in women.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

31. “In employing fiction to make truth clear and goodness attractive, we are only following the example which every Christian ought to propose to himself.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

32. “Parent of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

33. “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

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

35. “There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

36. “I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

37. “It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

38. “A page digested is better than a volume hurriedly read.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

39. “Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

40. “The real object of the drama is the exhibition of human character.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

41. “As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

42. “I don’t mind your thinking slowly; I mind your publishing faster than you think.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

44. “I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

45. “The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

46. “Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

47. “We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

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

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

50. “I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.”

— Thomas Babington Macaulay