Skip to content

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth, as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink, and wear.

— Thomas Babington Macaulay Southey's Colloquies on Society', The Edinburgh Review (1830)

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.