Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil.

Soon fades the spell, soon comes the night: Say will it not be then the same, Whether we played the black or white, Whether we lost or won the game?

The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.

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?

Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks of war, And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre.

As free constitutions are the strongest supports of governments, social order is the best safeguard of freedom. Liberty has no enemies so pernicious as those misguided friends whose ardour in her cause leads them to outrage the moral sense …

What an incalculable debt do we owe to that little speck of land, Greece.—The principles of taste, the finest models of composition, the doctrines and the glorious examples to which we owe political freedom, the arts, the sciences, …

I have been deep in Plato, Aristotle, and Theocritus ever since I left home, and admiring more and more every day the powers of that mighty language which is incomparably the best vehicle both for reasoning and for imagery that mankind …