J. C. Macaulay Quotes

The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.

Life, for all its agonies...is exciting and beautiful, amusing and artful and endearing...and whatever is to come after it -- we shall not have this life again.

It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it. One who trusts nobody will not trust sycophants. One who does not value real glory will not value its counterfeit.

Finesse is the best adaptation of means to circumstances.

People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws.

So they left the subject and played croquet, which is a very good game for people who are annoyed with one another, giving many opportunities for venting rancor.

Nothing except the mint can make money without advertising.

I would rather be poor in a cottage full of books than a king without the desire to read.

I write a good amount. I've been gathering up a backlog of stuff and maybe I'll do something with it someday, but I don't want to talk about it just yet because that would jinx it.

Most of the offers I get from Hollywood are for teen comedies. My manager thinks I'm crazy for turning down all that money, but I'm very picky.

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

I hope I'm remembered as the king of the world, the noble man who united all the nations of the earth. But that probably won't happen.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.

In the long run, the power of kindness can redeem beyond the power of force to destroy. There is a vast reservoir of kindness that we can no longer afford do disregard.

Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons.

I'm not one of those people who needs that gratification of doing, like, 10 films a year.

I can go to any restaurant without a reservation, but while I'm there, everyone's gonna be staring.

I've led a very isolated existence since I was 6 years old. It's kind of been me and my mind.

I don't even get an allowance.

I lead a simple life. I feed the fish. I walk the dogs. I cook dinner. Occasionally I take a meeting.

The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.

The funny thing is, I'm not really a big reader, not a big fan of books in the first place.

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear.

I'm doing naughty things, I'm drinking too much, I'm going to clubs. It really didn't matter to me, other than the fact that some parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me.

Once you get to know your neighbors, you are no longer free, you are all tangled up, you have to stop and speak when you are out and you never feel safe when you are in.

Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

The great and recurrent question about Abroad is, is it worth the trouble of getting there?

Because of what I did when I was 10 years old, I'm not living from paycheck to paycheck, and I can do things because I want to do them.

I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake; and I can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the works of God.

Human passions against eternal laws -- that is the everlasting conflict.

To lunch with the important ... that should be the daily goal of those for whom life is not a playground but a ladder.

The temple of silence and reconciliation.

The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little.

The impulse to ask questions is among the more primitive human lusts.

As to the family, I have never understood how that fits in with the other ideals -- or, indeed, why it should be an ideal at all.

Only one hour in the normal day is more pleasurable than the hour spent in bed with a book before going to sleep, and that is the hour spent in bed with a book after being called in the morning.

I'm not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms. To them I'm just some schmuck kid who wrote some book.

Acting found me. I thought maybe I should try to find it again. We'll see.

A lot of people meet me and they're like, 'Why aren't you crazy?'

Gosh, I couldn't even talk right until I was about 6 years old or something like that.

I have a lot of growing up to do, or a lot of growing down. I think that's probably more appropriate.

Atheism was natural enough, but heresy seemed strange. For, surely, if one could believe anything, one could believe everything.

Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors.

I could have gone the route of a lot of these former child actors, but I didn't want that for myself. Like I said, when I was 14 years old, I decided to quit. I didn't ever want to do it again.

I did a radio interview for a station in Connecticut or something, and it was the worst interview ever. It was all yes and no answers.