John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
Page 600
| Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay. (1800–1859) (continued) |
| 6127 |
| Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular. |
| On Mitford’s History of Greece. 1824. |
| 6128 |
| Wherever literature consoles sorrow or assuages pain; wherever it brings gladness to eyes which fail with wakefulness and tears, and ache for the dark house and the long sleep,—there is exhibited in its noblest form the immortal influence of Athens. |
| On Mitford’s History of Greece. 1824. |
| 6129 |
| We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age. |
| On Milton. 1825. |
| 6130 |
| Nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. |
| On Milton. 1825. |
| 6131 |
| Our academical Pharisees. |
| On Milton. 1825. |
| 6132 |
| The dust and silence of the upper shelf. |
| On Milton. 1825. |
| 6133 |
| Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind. |
| On Milton. 1825. |
| 6134 |
| Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave, and out of his Christian name a synonym for the Devil. 1 |
| On Niccolo dei Machiavelli. 1825. |
| 6135 |
| Nothing is so useless as a general maxim. |
| On Niccolo dei Machiavelli. 1825. |
| 6136 |
| The English Bible,—a book which if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power. |
| On John Dryden. 1828. |
| 6137 |
| His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar. |
| On John Dryden. 1828. |
| 6138 |
| A man possessed of splendid talents, which he often abused, and of a sound judgment, the admonitions of which he often neglected; a man who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who in that department succeeded pre-eminently. |
| On John Dryden. 1828. |
| Note 1. I wish I were as sure of anything as Macaulay is of everything. William Windham (1750–1810). [back] |