"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."

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

"One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life, and it is therefore essential that they should not let one down. They often do. The moral of which is that I must, mysel…"

— E. M. Forster

Literature1879–1970

#knowledge

"ICELANDER: So say all the philosophers. But since that which is destroyed suffers, and that which is born from its destruction also suffers in due course, and finally is in its turn destroyed, would y…"

— Giacomo Leopardi

Literature1798–1837

#life

"'The Man Who Shocked the World' article in Psychology Today by Thomas Blass"

— Stanley Milgram

Psychology1933–1984

#art

"As art sinks into paralysis, artists multiply. This anomaly ceases to be one if we realize that art, on its way to exhaustion, has become both impossible and easy."

— Emil Cioran

Philosophy1911–1995

#art