"She may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul’s."

Thomas Babington Macaulay Politics See all quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay →

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“Nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand.”

“The object of oratory alone is not truth, but persuasion.”

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

“The dust and silence of the upper shelf.”

“In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel and red men scalped each other by the great lakes of North America.”

“I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I got myself into a lovely little—shall we say controversy—with André Breton, by pointing out that the discipline of spontaneity, which he was asking his surrealist neophytes to adopt, was new for lan…"

— Virgil Thomson

Music1896–1989

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"I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in—like peace and justice and freedom."

— Banksy

Politics1973

#justice

"I think the “young adult” age is such a critical period of our lives. Young adults are still young enough to dream of magic and possibility, yet old enough to think for themselves and to begin to make…"

— Stacey Lee

Literature

#hope

"Spinoza shows that the history of metaphysics comprehends radical alternatives. Metaphysics, as the highest form of the organization of Modern thought, is not a unitary whole. It comprehends the alter…"

— Baruch Spinoza

Philosophy1632–1677

#philosophy