Thomas B. Macaulay Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• 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.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Humor, Government, People

• 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.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Liberty, Together, Civil Rights

• 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?

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Believe, Fall, Government

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

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Men, Confusion, Political

  "Southey's Colloquies on Society" by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1830.

• 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?

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Liberty, Useless

• 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.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Community, Liberty

  "Southey's Colloquies on Society". Book by Thomas B. Macaulay, 1830.

• I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Civilization

  Letter to Henry Stephens Randall, May 23, 1857.

• The Church is the handmaid of tyranny and the steady enemy of liberty.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Enemy, Atheism, Church

• It may be laid as an universal rule that a government which attempts more than it ought will perform less.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Government, Liberty, May

• 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.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Strong, Military, Order

  "The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay" edited by Thomas Pinney, Vol. 6, p. 94, 1981.

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