A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
History distinguishes what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
To be a really good historian is perhaps the rarest of intellectual distinctions. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
He had done that which could never be forgiven; he was in the grasp of one who never forgave. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the Revolution of 1688 is this that this was our last Revolution. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Those who compare the age in which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in imagination, may talk… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected in the Sanskrit language is… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among them, like… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque; yet he must control it so… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Those who have read history with discrimination know the fallacy of those panegyrics and invectives which represent individuals as effecting great moral… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
A Grecian history, perfectly written should be a complete record of the rise and progress of poetry, philosophy, and the arts. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Re: Robert Montgomery's Poems His writing bears the same relation to poetry which a Turkey carpet bears to a picture. There are colours in… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
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… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The most beautiful object in the world, it will be allowed, is a beautiful woman. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
The passages in which Milton has alluded to his own circumstances are perhaps read more frequently, and with more interest, than any other lines… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Oh, wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north, With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red? And wherefore doth… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information which has been collected in the Sanskrit language is less valuable… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
Ambrose Phillips . . . who had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby Pamby. — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
In the infancy of civilization, when our island was as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were still unknown to Athens, when… — Thomas B. Macaulay Copy Share Image
