Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes About Liberty
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The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?
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And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?
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I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.
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It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.
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The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.
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Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from 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.
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None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.
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I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.
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There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the community may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits.
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Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.
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Thomas B. Macaulay
- Born: October 25, 1800
- Died: December 28, 1859
- Occupation: Former Secretary at War
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