Skip to content

It is quite plain that your government will never be able to restrain a distressed and discontented majority. For with you the majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always a minority, absolutely at its mercy.

— Thomas Babington Macaulay

Another quote →

More quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay

Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

Southey's Colloquies on Society', The Edinburgh Review (1830)

The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.

I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

Milton', The Edinburgh Review (1825)

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

History of England (1849)

All Thomas Babington Macaulay quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Babington Macaulay (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.