Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes About Politics
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A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed respecting a question: all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he must. And if he is a man of ability, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully.
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Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.
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Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school--its abstract doctrines for the initiated; its visible symbols, its imposing forms, its mythological fables, for the vulgar.
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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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Men naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals; but they are inclined to look on a fallen party with contempt rather than with pity.
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There are countries in which it would be as absurd to establish popular governments as to abolish all the restraints in a school or to unite all the strait-waistcoats in a madhouse.
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Thomas B. Macaulay
- Born: October 25, 1800
- Died: December 28, 1859
- Occupation: Former Secretary at War
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