Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, 1800 - 1859
Oil on canvas by John Partridge
Born: 25 October 1800, Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England
Died: 29 December 1859, London, England
Babington was a noted child prodigy, at age eight he had written Compendium of Universal History which covered events from the creation to 1800 and The Battle of Cheviot, a romance à la Sir Walter Scott. He was educated at a private school at Hertfordshire then attended Trinity College, Cambridge. He won several awards for poetry while at Cambridge, including the Chancellor's Gold Medal in 1821. He was called to the bar in 1825 but used his legal skills in politics rather than the courts. He was a member of parliament for some fifteen years, serving three different ridings on four different occasions, making a number of eloquent speeches in favor of governmental reform and against slavery. He held several government offices at home, sat on the Supreme Council of India for four years, and was instrumental in forming the colonial government there. His five-volume History of England is regarded as one of the finest historical works of that scale. While choosing subjects for artwork to be painted in the Palace of Westminster he saw the need to collect an authoritative set of portraits of historical personalities and became one of the founders of the National Portrait Museum. He was created Baron Macaulay in 1857, the first and last to hold that title.
Biography from Wikipedia and NNDB
Thomas Babington Macaulay quotes:
Quotes found : 67 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- A single breaker may recede; but the tide is evidently coming in. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - 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? permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - By poetry we mean the art of employing of words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination; the art of doing by means of words, what the painter does by means of colors. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Charles V said that a man who knew four languages was worth four men; and Alexander the Great so valued learning, that he used to say he was more indebted to Aristotle for giving him knowledge than his father Philip for giving him life. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Everybody's business is nobody's business. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Few of the many wise apothegms, which have been uttered from the time of the seven sages of Greece to that of poor Richard, have prevented a single foolish action. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics compounded of misanthropy and voluptuousness, a system in which the two great commandments were to hate your neighbour and to love your neighbour's wife. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - He was a rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Said of Sir Richard Steele - His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay - Said of John Dryden - History, is made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men and woman. All the most noted destroyers and deceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrary governments and false religions have been extraordinary people; and nine tenths of the calamities that have befallen the human race had no other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires. permalink
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Quotes found : 67 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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