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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.

-Thomas B. Macaulay

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Those Who Have Read

Thomas B. Macaulay

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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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Half-knowledge Is Worse Than Ignorance.

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.

The Impenetrable Stupidity Of Prince George (son-in-law Of James Ii) Served His Turn. It Was His Habit, When Any News Was Told Him, To Exclaim, "est Il Possible?"-"is It Possible?"

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Nothing Is So Useless As A General Maxim.

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.

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!

Power, Safely Defied, Touches Its Downfall.

I Shall Cheerfully Bear The Reproach Of Having Descended Below The Dignity Of History If I Can Succeed In Placing Before The English Of The Nineteenth Century A True Picture Of The Life Of Their Ancestors.

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.

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

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.

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

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

British History

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

The Most Beautiful Object In The World, It Will Be Allowed, Is A Beautiful Woman.

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.

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.

There Is Only One Cure For The Evils Which Newly Acquired Freedom Produces, And That Cure Is Freedom.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thus, Then, Stands The Case. It Is Good, That Authors Should Be Remunerated; And The Least Exceptionable Way Of Remunerating Them Is By A Monopoly. Yet Monopoly Is An Evil. For The Sake Of The Good We Must Submit To The Evil; But The Evil Ought Not To Last A Day Longer Than Is Necessary For The Purpose Of Securing The Good.

The Orientals Have Another Word For Accident; It Is "kismet,"--fate.

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.

History Begins In Novel And Ends In Essay.

The End Of Government Is The Happiness Of The People.

It Is Certain That Satirical Poems Were Common At Rome From A Very Early Period. The Rustics, Who Lived At A Distance From The Seat Of Government, And Took Little Part In The Strife Of Factions, Gave Vent To Their Petty Local Animosities In Coarse Fescennine Verse.

Many Politicians Are In The Habit Of Laying It Down As A Self-evident Proposition That No People Ought To Be Free Till They Are Fit To Use Their Freedom. The Maxim Is Worthy Of The Fool In The Old Story Who Resolved Not To Go Into The Water Till He Had Learned To Swim.

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.

Ambrose Phillips . . . Who Had The Honor Of Bringing Into Fashion A Species Of Composition Which Has Been Called, After His Name, Namby Pamby.

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.

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.

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.

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

Shakespeare Has Had Neither Equal Nor Second.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

Nothing Is So Galling To A People Not Broken In From Birth As A Paternal, Or, In Other Words, A Meddling Government, A Government Which Tells Them What To Read, And Say, And Eat, And Drink And Wear.

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

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

Both In Individuals And In Masses Violent Excitement Is Always Followed By Remission, And Often By Reaction. We Are All Inclined To Depreciate Whatever We Have Overpraised, And, On The Other Hand, To Show Undue Indulgence Where We Have Shown Undue Rigor.

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

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

Reform, That We May Preserve.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

The Best Portraits Are Perhaps Those In Which There Is A Slight Mixture Of Caricature; And We Are Not Certain That The Best Histories Are Not Those In Which A Little Of The Exaggeration Of Fictitious Narrative Is Judiciously Employed. Something Is Lost In Accuracy; But Much Is Gained In Effect. The Fainter Lines Are Neglected; But The Great Characteristic Features Are Imprinted On The Mind Forever.

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

Power Of Persuasion

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.

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.

Language Is The Machine Of The Poet.

Thus Our Democracy Was From An Early Period The Most Aristocratic, And Our Aristocracy The Most Democratic.

We Are Free, We Are Civilised, To Little Purpose, If We Grudge To Any Portion Of The Human Race An Equal Measure Of Freedom And Civilisation.

A Dominant Religion Is Never Ascetic.

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

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

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.

None Of The Modes By Which A Magistrate Is Appointed, Popular Election, The Accident Of The Lot, Or The Accident Of Birth, Affords, As Far As We Can Perceive, Much Security For His Being Wiser Than Any Of His Neighbours. The Chance Of His Being Wiser Than All His Neighbours Together Is Still Smaller.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Finesse Is The Best Adaptation Of Means To Circumstances.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Everybody's Business Is Nobody's Business.

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

The Business Of Everybody Is The Business Of Nobody.

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.

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

Boswell Is The First Of Biographers.

A Beggarly People, A Church And No Steeple.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

The Sweeter Sound Of Woman's Praise.

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

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

Nothing Except The Mint Can Make Money Without Advertising.

Your Constitution Is All Sail And No Anchor.

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

A History In Which Every Particular Incident May Be True May On The Whole Be False.

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.

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.

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

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

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

The Knowledge Of The Theory Of Logic Has No Tendency Whatever To Make Men Good Reasoners.

With The Dead There Is No Rivalry, With The Dead There Is No Change.

That Is The Best Government Which Desires To Make The People Happy, And Knows How To Make Them Happy.

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.

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

The Saviour Of Mankind Himself, In Whose Blameless Life Malice Could Find No Act To Impeach, Has Been Called In Question For Words Spoken.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

To Sum Up The Whole, We Should Say That The Aim Of The Platonic Philosophy Was To Exalt Man Into A God.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Church Is The Handmaid Of Tyranny And The Steady Enemy Of Liberty.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Life Of Johnson Is Assuredly A Great, A Very Great Work. Homer Is Not More Decidedly The First Of Heroic Poets. Shakespeare Is Not More Decidedly The First Of Dramatists, Demosthenes Is Not More Decidedly The First Of Orators, Than Boswell Is The First Of Biographers. He Has No Second.

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.

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

Ye Diners Out From Whom We Guard Our Spoons.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

A Good Constitution Is Infinitely Better Than The Best Despot.

No War Ought Ever To Be Undertaken But Under Circumstances Which Render All Intercourse Of Courtesy Between The Combatants Impossible. It Is A Bad Thing That Men Should Hate Each Other; But It Is Far Worse That They Should Contract The Habit Of Cutting One Another's Throats Without Hatred. War Is Never Lenient But Where It Is Wanton; When Men Are Compelled To Fight In Self-defence, They Must Hate And Avenge: This May Be Bad; But It Is Human Nature.

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.

Knowledge Advances By Steps, And Not By Leaps.

Complete Self-devotion Is Woman's Part.

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.

The Temple Of Silence And Reconciliation.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Politeness Has Been Well Defined As Benevolence In Small Things.

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?

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.

How Well Horatius Kept The Bridge In The Brave Days Of Old.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

But The Time Will Come When New England Will Be As Thickly Peopled As Old England. Wages Will Be As Low, And Will Fluctuate As Much With You As With Us. You Will Have Your Manchesters And Birminghams; And, In Those Manchesters And Birminghams, Hundreds Of Thousands Of Artisans Will Assuredly Be Sometimes Out Of Work. Then Your Institutions Will Be Fairly Brought To The Test.

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.

History Distinguishes What Is Accidental And Transitory In Human Nature From What Is Essential And Immutable.

A Page Digested Is Better Than A Volume Hurriedly Read.

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.

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

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

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

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!

Parent Of Sweetest Sounds, Yet Mute Forever.

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.

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.

We Must Judge A Government By Its General Tendencies And Not By Its Happy Accidents.

Happy Accidents

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Kenneth H. Cooper

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