"That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy."

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

"When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to."

— Helen Rowland

Journalism1875–1950

#knowledge

"There are some places which, seen for the first time, yet seem to strike a chord of recollection. "I have been here before," we think to ourselves, "and this is one of my true homes." It is no mystery…"

— Edmund Clerihew Bentley

Literature1875–1956

#time

"People will resist information unless the price of not knowing it greatly exceeds the price of learning it."

— Calvin Mooers

Mathematics1919–1994

#knowledge

"I just asked a lot of really stupid questions to a lot of really patient people, and they were amazing. They were so generous with their time and so patient with my dumb questions. That’s how I learne…"

— Kate Marvel

Science2000

#knowledge