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In The Modern Languages There Was Not, Six Hundred Years Ago, A Single Volume Which Is Now Read. The Library Of Our Profound Scholar Must Have Consisted Entirely Of Latin Books.

-Thomas B. Macaulay

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In The Modern Languages

Thomas B. Macaulay

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In The Modern Languages There Was Not, Six Hundred Years Ago, A Single Volume Which Is Now Read. The Library Of Our Profound Scholar Must Have Consisted Entirely Of Latin Books.

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I Have Not The Smallest Doubt That, If We Had A Purely Democratic Government Here, The Effect Would Be The Same. Either The Poor Would Plunder The Rich, And Civilisation Would Perish; Or Order And Property Would Be Saved By A Strong Military Government, And Liberty Would Perish.

There Were Gentlemen And There Were Seamen In The Navy Of Charles The Second. But The Seamen Were Not Gentlemen; And The Gentlemen Were Not Seamen.

The Puritan Hated Bear-baiting, Not Because It Gave Pain To The Bear, But Because It Gave Pleasure To The Spectators.

I Have Seen The Hippopotamus, Both Asleep And Awake; And I Can Assure You That, Awake Or Asleep, He Is The Ugliest Of The Works Of God.

There Is No Country In Europe Which Is So Easy To Over-run As Spain; There Is No Country Which It Is More Difficult To Conquer.

A Few More Years Will Destroy Whatever Yet Remains Of That Magical Potency Which Once Belonged To The Name Of Byron.

Half-knowledge Is Worse Than Ignorance.

The Temple Of Silence And Reconciliation.

In Perseverance, In Self Command, In Forethought, In All Virtues Which Conduce To Success In Life, The Scots Have Never Been Surpassed.

Genius Is Subject To The Same Laws Which Regulate The Production Of Cotton And Molasses.

The Highest Intellects, Like The Tops Of Mountains, Are The First To Catch And To Reflect The Dawn.

What A Singular Destiny Has Been That Of This Remarkable Man!-to Be Regarded In His Own Age As A Classic, And In Ours As A Companion! To Receive From His Contemporaries That Full Homage Which Men Of Genius Have In General Received Only From Posterity; To Be More Intimately Known To Posterity Than Other Men Are Known To Their Contemporaries!

Complete Self-devotion Is Woman's Part.

He Had A Head Which Statuaries Loved To Copy, And A Foot The Deformity Of Which The Beggars In The Streets Mimicked.

History, Is Made Up Of The Bad Actions Of Extraordinary Men And Woman. All The Most Noted Destroyers And Deceivers Of Our Species, All The Founders Of Arbitrary Governments And False Religions Have Been Extraordinary People; And Nine Tenths Of The Calamities That Have Befallen The Human Race Had No Other Origin Than The Union Of High Intelligence With Low Desires.

It Is The Age That Forms The Man, Not The Man That Forms The Age.

The Upper Current Of Society Presents No Pertain Criterion By Which We Can Judge Of The Direction In Which The Under Current Flows.

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.

The Reluctant Obedience Of Distant Provinces Generally Costs More Than It - The Territory Is Worth. Empires Which Branch Out Widely Are Often More Flourishing For A Little Timely Pruning.

Satire Is, Indeed, The Only Sort Of Composition In Which The Latin Poets Whose Works Have Come Down To Us Were Not Mere Imitators Of Foreign Models; And It Is Therefore The Sort Of Composition In Which They Have Never Been Excelled.

Language, The Machine Of The Poet, Is Best Fitted For His Purpose In Its Rudest State. Nations, Like Individuals, First Perceive, And Then Abstract. They Advance From Particular Images To General Terms. Hence The Vocabulary Of An Enlightened Society Is Philosophical, That Of A Half-civilized People Is Poetical.

The Great Cause Of Revolutions Is This, That While Nations Move Onward, Constitutions Stand Still.

A Kind Of Semi-solomon, Half-knowing Everything, From The Cedar To The Hyssop.

Knowing Everything

Was None Who Would Be Foremost To Lead Such Dire Attack; But Those Behind Cried "forward!" And Those Before Cried "back!

Generalization Is Necessary To The Advancement Of Knowledge; But Particularity Is Indispensable To The Creations Of The Imagination.

We Never Could Clearly Understand How It Is That Egotism, So Unpopular In Conversation, Should Be So Popular In Writing.

Generalization Is Necessary To The Advancement Of Knowledge; But Particularly Is Indispensable To The Creations Of The Imagination. In Proportion As Men Know More And Think More They Look Less At Individuals And More At Classes. They Therefore Make Better Theories And Worse Poems.

I Wish I Was As Sure Of Anything As He Is Of Everything.

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.

A Vice Sanctioned By The General Opinion Is Merely A Vice. The Evil Terminates In Itself. A Vice Condemned By The General Opinion Produces A Pernicious Effect On The Whole Character. The Former Is A Local Malady; The Latter, Constitutional Taint. When The Reputation Of The Offender Is Lost, He Too Often Flings The Remainder Of His Virtue After It In Despair.

The Real Object Of The Drama Is The Exhibition Of Human Character.

As Freedom Is The Only Safeguard Of Governments, So Are Order And Moderation Generally Necessary To Preserve Freedom.

Forget All Feuds, And Shed One English Tear O'er English Dust. A Broken Heart Lies Here.

Propriety Of Thought And Propriety Of Diction Are Commonly Found Together. Obscurity And Affectation Are The Two Greatest Faults Of Style. Obscurity Of Expression Generally Springs From Confusion Of Ideas; And The Same Wish To Dazzle, At Any Cost, Which Produces Affectation In The Manner Of A Writer, Is Likely To Produce Sophistry In His Reasonings.

Everybody's Business Is Nobody's Business.

No Man Who Is Correctly Informed As To The Past Will Be Disposed To Take A Morose Or Desponding View Of The Present.

What A Blessing It Is To Love Books As I Love Them;- To Be Able To Converse With The Dead, And To Live Amidst The Unreal!

A Page Digested Is Better Than A Volume Hurriedly Read.

He [charles Ii] Was Utterly Without Ambition. He Detested Business, And Would Sooner Have Abdicated His Crown Than Have Undergone The Trouble Of Really Directing The Administration.

We Know No Spectacle So Ridiculous As The British Public In One Of Its Periodical Fits Of Morality.

Nothing Is So Useless As A General Maxim.

Oh, Wherefore Come Ye Forth In Triumph From The North, With Your Hands, And Your Feet, And Your Raiment All Red? And Wherefore Doth Your Rout Send Forth A Joyous Shout? And Whence Be The Grapes Of The Wine-press Which Ye Tread?

To Punish A Man Because He Has Committed A Crime, Or Because He Is Believed, Though Unjustly, To Have Committed A Crime, Is Not Persecution. To Punish A Man, Because We Infer From The Nature Of Some Doctrine Which He Holds, Or From The Conduct Of Other Persons Who Hold The Same Doctrines With Him, That He Will Commit A Crime, Is Persecution, And Is, In Every Case, Foolish And Wicked.

Our Estimate Of A Character Always Depends Much On The Manner In Which That Character Affects Our Own Interests And Passions.

A System In Which The Two Great Commandments Are To Hate Your Neighbor And To Love Your Neighbor's Wife.

No Particular Man Is Necessary To The State. We May Depend On It That, If We Provide The Country With Popular Institutions, Those Institutions Will Provide It With Great Men.

That Wonderful Book, While It Obtains Admiration From The Most Fastidious Critics, Is Loved By Those Who Are Too Simple To Admire It.

Sense Can Support Herself Handsomely In Most Countries On Some Eighteen Pence A Day; But For Fantasy, Planets And Solar Systems, Will Not Suffice.

Even The Law Of Gravitation Would Be Brought Into Dispute Were There A Pecuniary Interest Involved.

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.

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.

A Grecian History, Perfectly Written Should Be A Complete Record Of The Rise And Progress Of Poetry, Philosophy, And The Arts.

A Church Is Disaffected When It Is Persecuted, Quiet When It Is Tolerated, And Actively Loyal When It Is Favored And Cherished.

Reform, That We May Preserve.

The Effect Of Violent Dislike Between Groups Has Always Created An Indifference To The Welfare And Honor Of The State.

It May Be Laid As An Universal Rule That A Government Which Attempts More Than It Ought Will Perform Less.

The Object Of Oratory Alone In Not Truth, But Persuasion.

Power Of Persuasion

The Opinion Of The Great Body Of The Reading Public Is Very Materially Influenced Even By The Unsupported Assertions Of Those Who Assume A Right To Criticize.

Such Night In England Ne'er Had Been, Nor Ne'er Again Shall Be.

How It Chanced That A Man Who Reasoned On His Premises So Ably, Should Assume His Premises So Foolishly, Is One Of The Great Mysteries Of Human Nature.

Scotland By No Means Escaped The Fate Ordained For Every Country Which Is Connected, But Not Incorporated, With Another Country Of Greater Resources.

All The Walks Of Literature Are Infested With Mendicants For Fame, Who Attempt To Excite Our Interest By Exhibiting All The Distortions Of Their Intellects And Stripping The Covering From All The Putrid Sores Of Their Feelings.

This Is The Highest Miracle Of Genius, That Things Which Are Not Should Be As Though They Were, That The Imaginations Of One Mind Should Become The Personal Recollections Of Another.

We Hardly Know An 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.

There Are Countries In Which It Would Be As Absurd To Establish Popular Governments As To Abolish All The Restraints In A School Or To Unite All The Strait-waistcoats In A Madhouse.

Those Who Seem To Load The Public Taste Are, In General, Merely Outrunning It In The Direction Which It Is Spontaneously Pursuing.

In That Temple Of Silence And Reconciliation Where The Enmities Of Twenty Generations Lie Buried, In The Great Abbey Which Has During Many Ages Afforded A Quiet Resting-place To Those Whose Minds And Bodies Have Been Shattered By The Contentions Of The Great Hall.

Perhaps No Person Can Be A Poet, Or Can Even Enjoy Poetry, Without A Certain Unsoundness Of Mind.

To Carry The Spirit Of Peace Into War Is A Weak And Cruel Policy. When An Extreme Case Calls For That Remedy Which Is In Its Own Nature Most Violent, And Which, In Such Cases, Is A Remedy Only Because It Is Violent, It Is Idle To Think Of Mitigating And Diluting. Languid War Can Do Nothing Which Negotiation Or Submission Will Do Better: And To Act On Any Other Principle Is, Not To Save Blood And Money, But To Squander Them.

It Is, I Believe, No Exaggeration To Say That All The Historical Information Which Has Been Collected In The Sanskrit Language Is Less Valuable Than What May Be Found In The Paltry Abridgements Used At Preparatory Schools In England.

The Merit Of Poetry, In Its Wildest Forms, Still Consists In Its Truth-truth Conveyed To The Understanding, Not Directly By The Words, But Circuitously By Means Of Imaginative Associations, Which Serve As Its Conductors.

In Plato's Opinion, Man Was Made For Philosophy; In Bacon's Opinion, Philosophy Was Made For Man.

A Dominant Religion Is Never Ascetic.

He Who, In An Enlightened And Literary Society, Aspires To Be A Great Poet, Must First Become A Little Child.

I Am Always Nearest To Myself," Says The Latin Proverb.

The Gallery In Which The Reporters Sit Has Become A Fourth Estate Of The Realm.

The Perfect Disinterestedness And Self-devotion Of Which Men Seem Incapable, But Which Is Sometimes Found In Women.

Every Sect Clamors For Toleration When It Is Down.

Few Of The Many Wise Apothegms Which Have Been Uttered Have Prevented A Single Foolish Action.

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.

In Truth It May Be Laid Down As An Almost Universal Rule That Good Poets Are Bad Critics.

Queen Mary Had A Way Of Interrupting Tattle About Elopements, Duels, And Play Debts, By Asking The Tattlers, Very Quietly Yet Significantly, Whether They Had Ever Read Her Favorite Sermon--dr. Tillotson On Evil Speaking.

But Thou, Through Good And Evil, Praise And Blame, Wilt Not Thou Love Me For Myself Alone? Yes, Thou Wilt Love Me With Exceeding Love, And I Will Tenfold All That Love Repay; Still Smiling, Though The Tender May Reprove, Still Faithful, Though The Trusted May Betray.

There Is Surely No Contradiction In Saying That A Certain Section Of The Community May Be Quite Competent To Protect The Persons And Property Of The Rest, Yet Quite Unfit To Direct Our Opinions, Or To Superintend Our Private Habits.

It Is Possible To Be Below Flattery As Well As Above It. One Who Trusts Nobody Will Not Trust Sycophants. One Who Does Not Value Real Glory Will Not Value Its Counterfeit.

I Shall Cheerfully Bear The Reproach Of Having Descended Below The Dignity Of History.

Shakespeare Has Had Neither Equal Nor Second.

The Highest Eulogy Which Can Be Pronounced On The Revolution Of 1688 Is This That This Was Our Last Revolution.

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.

He Had Done That Which Could Never Be Forgiven; He Was In The Grasp Of One Who Never Forgave.

British History

The English Bible - A Book Which, If Everything Else In Our Language Should Perish, Would Alone Suffice To Show The Whole Extent Of Its Beauty And Power.

Nothing Except The Mint Can Make Money Without Advertising.

Western Literature Has Been More Influenced By The Bible Than Any Other Book.

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.

In The Infancy Of Civilization, When Our Island Was As Savage As New Guinea, When Letters And Arts Were Still Unknown To Athens, When Scarcely A Thatched Roofed Hut Stood On What Was Later The Site Of Rome, This Contemned People Had Their Fenced Cities And Cedar Palaces, Their Splendid Temple, Their Fleets Of Merchant Ships, Their Schools Of Sacred Learning, Their Great Statesmen And Soldiers, Their Natural Philosophers, Their Historians And Their Poets.

Men Naturally Sympathize With The Calamities Of Individuals; But They Are Inclined To Look On A Fallen Party With Contempt Rather Than With Pity.

I Don't Mind Your Thinking Slowly; I Mind Your Publishing Faster Than You Think.

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.

We Hold That The Most Wonderful And Splendid Proof Of Genius Is A Great Poem Produced In A Civilized Age.

The English Doctrine That All Power Is A Trust For The Public Good.

I Have Long Been Convinced That Institutions Purely Democratic Must, Sooner Or Later, Destroy Liberty Or Civilization, Or Both.

Democracies Have

Temple Was A Man Of The World Amongst Men Of Letters, A Man Of Letters Amongst Men Of The World.

The Measure Of A Man's Real Character Is What He Would Do If He Knew He Would Never Be Found Out.

Our Judgment Ripens; Our Imagination Decays. We Cannot At Once Enjoy The Flowers Of The Spring Of Life And The Fruits Of Its Autumn.

And How Can Man Die Better Than Facing Fearful Odds, For The Ashes Of His Fathers, And The Temples Of His Gods?

The Conformation Of His Mind Was Such That Whatever Was Little Seemed To Him Great, And Whatever Was Great Seemed To Him Little.

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.

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.

If Any Person Had Told The Parliament Which Met In Terror And Perplexity After The Crash Of 1720 That In 1830 The Wealth Of England Would Surpass All Their Wildest Dreams, That The Annual Revenue Would Equal The Principal Of That Debt Which They Considered An Intolerable Burden, That For One Man Of

Grief, Which Disposes Gentle Natures To Retirement, To Inaction, And To Meditation, Only Makes Restless Spirits More Restless.

Then None Was For A Party; Than All Were For The State; Then The Great 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.

An Acre In Middlesex Is Better Than A Principality In Utopia.

The Hearts Of Men Are Their Books; Events Are Their Tutors; Great Actions Are Their Eloquence.

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.

Ye Diners Out From Whom We Guard Our Spoons.

Mere Negation, Mere Epicurean Infidelity, As Lord Bacon Most Justly Observes, Has Never Disturbed The Peace Of The World. It Furnishes No Motive For Action; It Inspires No Enthusiasm; It Has No Missionaries, No Crusades, No Martyrs.

The Business Of The Dramatist Is To Keep Himself Out Of Sight, And To Let Nothing Appear But His Characters. As Soon As He Attracts Notice To His Personal Feelings, The Illusion Is Broken.

War Is Never Lenient But Where It Is Wanton; Where Men Are Compelled To Fight In Self-defence, They Must Hate And Avenge. This May Be Bad, But It Is Human Nature; It Is The Clay As It Came From The Hands Of The Potter.

History Begins In Novel And Ends In Essay.

Politeness Has Been Well Defined As Benevolence In Small Things.

The Business Of Everybody Is The Business Of Nobody.

He Who, In An Enlightened And Literary Society, Aspires To Be A Great Poet, Must First Become A Little Child. He Must Take To Pieces The Whole Web Of His Mind. He Must Unlearn Much Of That Knowledge Which Has Perhaps Constituted Hitherto His Chief Title To Superiority. His Very Talents Will Be A Hindrance To Him.

A Man Possessed Of Splendid Talents, Which He Often Abused, And Of A Sound Judgment, The Admonitions Of Which He Often Neglected; A Man Who Succeeded Only In An Inferior Department Of His Art, But Who In That Department Succeeded Pre-eminently.

The Chief-justice Was Rich, Quiet, And Infamous.

If Anybody Would Make Me The Greatest King That Ever Lived, With Palaces, And Gardens And Fine Dinners, And Wine, And Coaches, And Beautiful Clothes, And Hundreds Of Servants, On Condition That I Would Not Read Books, I Would Not Be A King.

With Respect To The Doctrine Of A Future Life, A North American Indian Knows Just As Much As Any Ancient Or Modern Philosopher.

Lars Porsena Of Clusium By The Nine Gods He Swore That The Great House Of Tarquin Should Suffer Wrongs No More.

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.

In The Plays Of Shakespeare Man Appears As He Is, Made Up Of A Crowd Of Passions Which Contend For The Mastery Over Him, And Govern Him In Turn.

As Civilization Advances, Poetry Almost Necessarily Declines.

The Real Security Of Christianity Is To Be Found In Its Benevolent Morality, In Its Exquisite Adaptation To The Human Heart, In The Facility With Which Its Scheme Accommodates Itself To The Capacity Of Every Human Intellect, In The Consolation Which It Bears To The House Of Mourning, In The Light With Which It Brightens The Great Mystery Of The Grave.

In Order That He Might Rob A Neighbour Whom He Had Promised To Defend, Black Men Fought On The Coast Of Coromandel And Red Men Scalped Each Other By The Great Lakes Of North America.

People Crushed By Law Have No Hopes But From Power. If Laws Are Their Enemies, They Will Be Enemies To Laws.

I Would Rather Be Poor In A Cottage Full Of Books Than A King Without The Desire To Read.

The End Of Government Is The Happiness Of The People.

So True It Is, That Nature Has Caprices Which Art Cannot Imitate.

[i Can] Scarcely Write Upon Mathematics Or Mathematicians. Oh For Words To Express My Abomination Of The Science.

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.

The Desire Of Posthumous Fame And The Dread Of Posthumous Reproach And Execration Are Feelings From The Influence Of Which Scarcely Any Man Is Perfectly Free, And Which In Many Men Are Powerful And Constant Motives Of Action.

He Was A Rake Among Scholars, And A Scholar Among Rakes.

We Must Judge Of A Form Of Government By It's General Tendency, Not By Happy Accidents

The Good-humor Of A Man Elated With Success Often Displays Itself Towards Enemies.

The Passages In Which Milton Has Alluded To His Own Circumstances Are Perhaps Read More Frequently, And With More Interest, Than Any Other Lines In His Poems.

Our Rulers Will Best Promote The Improvement Of The Nation By Strictly Confining Themselves To Their Own Legitimate Duties, By Leaving Capital To Find Its Most Lucrative Course, Commodities Their Fair Price, Industry And Intelligence Their Natural Reward, Idleness And Folly Their Natural Punishment, By Maintaining Peace, By Defending Property, By Diminishing The Price Of Law, And By Observing Strict Economy In Every Department Of The State. Let The Government Do This: The People Will Assuredly Do The Rest.

The Ascendency Of The Sacerdotal Order Was Long The Ascendency Which Naturally And Properly Belonged To Intellectual Superiority.

A Single Breaker May Recede; But The Tide Is Evidently Coming In.

The Effective Strength Of Sects Is Not To Be Ascertained Merely By Counting Heads.

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.

In Taste And Imagination, In The Graces Of Style, In The Arts Of Persuasion, In The Magnificence Of Public Works, The Ancients Were At Least Our Equals.

Cut Off My Head, And Singular I Am, Cut Off My Tail, And Plural I Appear; Although My Middle's Left, There's Nothing There! What Is My Head Cut Off? A Sounding Sea; What Is My Tail Cut Off? A Rushing River; And In Their Mingling Depths I Fearless Play, Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

Beards In Olden Times, Were The Emblems Of Wisdom And Piety.

Great Minds Do Indeed React On The Society Which Has Made Them What They Are; But They Only Pay With Interest What They Have Received.

Boswell Is The First Of Biographers.

Language Is The Machine Of The Poet.

Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

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.

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.

A Beggarly People, A Church And No Steeple.

Byron Owed The Vast Influence Which He Exercised Over His Contemporaries At Least As Much To His Gloomy Egotism As To The Real Power Of His Poetry.

It Is Good To Be Often Reminded Of The Inconsistency Of Human Nature, And To Learn To Look Without Wonder Or Disgust On The Weaknesses Which Are Found In The Strongest Minds.

The Best Portraits Are Those In Which There Is A Slight Mixture Of Caricature.

It Has Often Been Found That Profuse Expenditures, Heavy Taxation, Absurd Commercial Restrictions, Corrupt Tribunals, Disastrous Wars, Seditions, Persecutions, Conflagrations, Inundation, Have Not Been Able To Destroy Capital So Fast As The Exertions Of Private Citizens Have Been Able To Create It.

Even Holland And Spain Have Been Positively, Though Not Relatively, Advancing.

If Ever Shakespeare Rants, It Is Not When His Imagination Is Hurrying Him Along, But When He Is Hurrying His Imagination Along.

Man Is So Inconsistent A Creature That It Is Impossible To Reason From His Beliefs To His Conduct, Or From One Part Of His Belief To Another.

Those Who Compare The Age In Which Their Lot Has Fallen With A Golden Age Which Exists Only In Imagination, May Talk Of Degeneracy And Decay; But No Man Who Is Correctly Informed As To The Past, Will Be Disposed To Take A Morose Or Desponding View Of The Present.

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?

A Man Who Should Act, For One Day, On The Supposition That All The People About Him Were Influenced By The Religion Which They Professed Would Find Himself Ruined By Night.

Finesse Is The Best Adaptation Of Means To Circumstances.

This Is The Best Book Ever Written By Any Man On The Wrong Side Of A Question Of Which He Is Profoundly Ignorant.

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.

We Do Not Think It Necessary To Prove That A Quack Medicine Is Poison; Let The Vender Prove It To Be Sanative.

A Government Cannot Be Wrong In Punishing Fraud Or Force, But It Is Almost Certain To Be Wrong If, Abandoning Its Legitimate Function, It Tells Private Individuals That It Knows Their Business Better Than They Know It Themselves.

Men Of Great Conversational Powers Almost Universally Practise A Sort Of Lively Sophistry And Exaggeration Which Deceives For The Moment Both Themselves And Their Auditors.

The Spartan, Smiting And Spurning The Wretched Helot, Moves Our Disgust. But The Same Spartan, Calmly Dressing His Hair, And Uttering His Concise Jests, On What The Well Knows To Be His Last Day, In The Pass Of Thermopylae, Is Not To Be Contemplated Without Admiration.

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.

Nobles By The Right Of An Earlier Creation, And Priests By The Imposition Of A Mightier Hand.

We Deplore The Outrages Which Accompany Revolutions. But The More Violent The Outrages, The More Assured We Feel That A Revolution Was Necessary.

The Whole History Of Christianity Proves That She Has Little Indeed To Fear From Persecution As A Foe, But Much To Fear From Persecution As An Ally.

Power, Safely Defied, Touches Its Downfall.

Men Are Never So Likely To Settle A Question Rightly As When They Discuss It Freely.

In Every Age The Vilest Specimens Of Human Nature Are To Be Found Among Demagogues.

Books Are Becoming Everything To Me. If I Had At This Moment Any Choice In Life, I Would Bury Myself In One Of Those Immense Libraries...and Never Pass A Waking Hour Without A Book Before Me.

Free Trade, One Of The Greatest Blessings Which A Government Can Confer On A People, Is In Almost Every Country Unpopular.

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!

In Employing Fiction To Make Truth Clear And Goodness Attractive, We Are Only Following The Example Which Every Christian Ought To Propose To Himself.

If The Sunday Had Not Been Observed As A Day Of Rest During The Last Three Centuries, I Have Not The Slightest Doubt That We Should Have Been At This Moment A Poorer People And Less Civilized.

The History Of Nations, In The Sense In Which I Use The Word, Is Often Best Studied In Works Not Professedly Historical.

What Society Wants Is A New Motive, Not A New Cant.

A Good Constitution Is Infinitely Better Than The Best Despot.

There Was, It Is Said, A Criminal In Italy Who Was Suffered To Make His Choice Between Guicciardini And The Galleys. He Chose The History. But The War Of Pisa Was Too Much For Him; He Changed His Mind, And Went To The Oars.

A Politician Must Often Talk And Act Before He Has Thought And Read. He May Be Very Ill Informed Respecting A Question: All His Notions About It May Be Vague And Inaccurate; But Speak He Must. And If He Is A Man Of Ability, Of Tact, And Of Intrepidity, He Soon Finds That, Even Under Such Circumstances, It Is Possible To Speak Successfully.

To Be A Really Good Historian Is Perhaps The Rarest Of Intellectual Distinctions.

More Sinners Are Cursed At Not Because We Despise Their Sins But Because We Envy Their Success At Sinning.

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.

The Doctrine Which, From The Very First Origin Of Religious Dissensions, Has Been Held By Bigots Of All Sects, When Condensed Into A Few Words And Stripped Of Rhetorical Disguise, Is Simply This: I Am In The Right, And You Are In The Wrong. When You Are The Stronger, You Ought To Tolerate Me; For It Is Your Duty To Tolerate Truth. But When I Am The Stronger I Shall Persecute You; For It Is My Duty To Persecute Error.

No Man In The World Acts Up To His Own Standard Of Right.

Turn Where We May, Within, Around, The Voice Of Great Events Is Proclaiming To Us, Reform, That You May Preserve!

She Thoroughly Understands What No Other Church Has Ever Understood, How To Deal With Enthusiasts.

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.

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