Thomas B. Macaulay

British historian, whig politician, essayist and poet

Nationality: British

Type: Politician

Birth: 1800-1859

Page: 1

The king is the man who can.

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What you see, but can't see over is as good as infinite.

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Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether.

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The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

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In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

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A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

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Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.

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No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.

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The battle that never ends is the battle of belief against unbelief.

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The most fearful unbelief is unbelief in your self.

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Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.

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One must verify or expel his doubts, and convert them into the certainty of Yes or No.

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The true past departs not, no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die; but all is still here, and, recognized or not, lives and works through endless change.

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By nature man hates change; seldom will he quit his old home till it has actually fallen around his ears.

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Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope.

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Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of a man you are. It shows me what your ideal of manhood is, and what kind of a man you long to be.

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Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it ;better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.

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Oh, give us the man who sings at his work.

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The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

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Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

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Our life is not really a mutual helpfulness; but rather, it's fair competition cloaked under due laws of war; it's a mutual hostility.

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The archenemy is the arch stupid!

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The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently, but to live manfully.

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No sadder proof can be given of a person's own tiny stature, than their disbelief in great people.

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There are but two ways of paying debt: Increase of industry in raising income, increase of thrift in laying out.

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The depth of our despair measures what capability and height of claim we have to hope.

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The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough.

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No sooner is your ocean filled, than he grumbles that it might have been of better vintage. Try him with half of a Universe, of an Omnipotence, he sets to quarrelling with the proprietor of the other half, and declares himself the most maltreated of men.

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Doubt, of whatever kind, can be ended by action alone.

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The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.

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Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

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Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.

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If there be no enemy there's no fight. If no fight, no victory and if no victory there is no crown.

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The condition of the most passionate enthusiast is to be preferred over the individual who, because of the fear of making a mistake, won't in the end affirm or deny anything.

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All evil is like a nightmare; the instant you stir under it, the evil is gone.

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Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

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Weak eyes are fondest of glittering objects.

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What are your historical Facts; still more your biographical? Wilt thou know a man by stringing-together beadrolls of what thou namest Facts?

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Conclusive facts are inseparable from inconclusive except by a head that already understands and knows.

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I grow daily to honor facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing - a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

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To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

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Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property of man.

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If the cut of the costume indicates intellect and talent, then the color indicates temper and heart.

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Society is founded upon cloth.

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The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

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Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

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Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.

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In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

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No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

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The difference between Socrates and Jesus? The great conscious and the immeasurably great unconscious.

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The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

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Ill-health, of body or of mind, is defeat. Health alone is victory. Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to be healthy!

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The heart always sees before than the head can see.

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Heroism is the divine relation which, in all times, unites a great man to other men.

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Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.

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History is the distillation of rumor.

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The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

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The whole past is the procession of the present.

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Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure there is one less rascal in the world.

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The end of man is action, and not thought, though it be of the noblest.