"Every man who has seen the world knows……" — Thomas B. Macaulay
"Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.... If, like those of Rochefoucault, it be sparkling and whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an essay. But few, indeed, of the many wise apophthegms which have been uttered from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of Poor Richard have prevented a single foolish action."
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Thomas B. Macaulay
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125 Quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay
Thomas B. Macaulay has 125 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.
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To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed…
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A system in which the two great commandments are to hate your neighbor and to love your neighbor's wife.
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In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which…
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The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
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None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident…
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The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But…
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Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.
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And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is…
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Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a…
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There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect…
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[I can] scarcely write upon mathematics or mathematicians. Oh for words to express my abomination of the science.
See all 125 quotes by Thomas B. Macaulay »
More Action Quotes
This quote is filed under Action Quotes,
one of 8,300 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
— Hannah Arendt
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Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then…
— Hannah Arendt
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Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
— Hannah Arendt
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Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.
— Hannah Arendt
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All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
— Aristotle
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Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate…
— Aristotle
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Well begun is half done.
— Aristotle
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A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole…
— Aristotle
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Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
— Aristotle
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We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
— Aristotle
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Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for…
— Aristotle
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What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition…
— Aristotle
See all 8,300 Action Quotes »