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Quote#Success & Failure

A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of…

Quote byThomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay · 1800–1859

Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: 'War of the Succession in Spain', The Edinburgh Review (January 1833); in Critical and Historical Essays Contributed to The Edinburgh Review, Vol. II (1843), p. 91.

English (original)

A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no compromise. A public-man is often under the necessity of consenting to measures which he dislikes, lest he should endanger the success of measures which he thinks of vital importance.

— Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

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