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Thomas B. Macaulay

Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes

Former Secretary at War

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Famous Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes

“When the great Kepler bad at length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed: "Whether my discoveries will be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is a matter that concerns them more than me. I may well be contented to wait one century for a reader, when God Himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an observer like myself.”

YearsWellsMayMatterBodyLawWaitingCenturyReaderGeniusThousandDiscoveryConcernHeavenlyLengthThousand YearsObserversPosterityHeavenly BodiesKepler
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“A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque; yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner; yet he must possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis.”

SelfFactsImaginationPerfectPowerfulMaterialsProfoundCommandNarrativeSufficientHistorianHypothesisCastingRefrainDeficiencyIngeniousMouldPicturesque
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“The study of the properties of numbers, Plato tells us, habituates the mind to the contemplation of pure truth, and raises us above the material universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be shopkeepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world, and to fix them on the immutable essences of things.”

WorldMindMayAbleUniverseNumbersStudyMaterialsPureEssenceMathematicsRaisesSellsPropertyContemplationVisibleDisciplePlatoShiftingTangibleMerchantsShopkeepers
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“Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the fashion of their morals with the fashion of their hats and their coaches; take some other kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of their ancestors.”

KindPersonsAgeCertainNationsWonderMoralGenerationsFashionMoralitySucceedVicesCoachesCharacteristicsHatsAncestorWickednessDepravityCensureMoralistScruplesPatronage
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“It was before Deity embodied in a human form walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the swords of thirty legions were humbled in the dust.”

MenHumansFormChristDoubtPrideWalkingCrossesPrejudiceGravesDustThirtyDeitiesWeepingAcademyBosomsBleedingInfirmityLegionSynagogueHuman Form
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“Those who have read history with discrimination know the fallacy of those panegyrics and invectives which represent individuals as effecting great moral and intellectual revolutions, subverting established systems, and imprinting a new character on their age. The difference between one man and another is by no means so great as the superstitious crowd suppose.”

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Author:Thomas B. Macaulay
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