"The ambassador and the grandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls dropping pearls and vermin."

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

"Most prisoners are perfectly mentally healthy compared with the paranoia of prison officials."

— Ian Brady

Psychology1938–2017

#health

"In Philistia to make literature and to make trouble for yourself are synonyms,… the tumblebug explained. — I know, for already we of Philistia have been pestered by three of these makers of literature…"

— James Branch Cabell

Literature1879–1958

#books

"I don’t know about that because nobody said anything to me on my face. And if I was being favoured, I would have just come for a couple of hours for the shoot and gone. Instead, I used to be on the se…"

— Drashti Dhami

Entertainment1985

#philosophy