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Quote by Thomas B. Macaulay

“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.”

Quote by Thomas B. Macaulay

Author

Thomas B. Macaulay

Thomas B. Macaulay, born on October 25, 1800, in Ireland, and died on December 28, 1859, in the United Kingdom, was a prominent political figure in the Victorian era. He served as the Secretary at War, playing a significant role in the British government. more

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“Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among them, like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its whole value; and the precious particles are generally combined with the baser in such a manner that the separation is a task of the utmost difficulty.”

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“What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one,--and that is not only true, but identical,--that men always act from self-interest.”

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“Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they profess, and act up to all that they believe!”

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“We must succumb to the general influence of the times. No man can be of the tenth century, if he would; be must be a man of the nineteenth century.”

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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.”

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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.”

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“What society wants is a new motive, not a new cant.”

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“At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is more honorably distinguished for fine observation, by grace, by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling.”

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