"Hence it may be concluded that the happiest state of society is that in which supreme power resides in the whole body of a well-informed people. This is an imaginary, perhaps an unattainable, state of things. Yet, in some measure, we may approximate to it; and he alone deserves the name of a great statesman, whose principle it is to extend the power of the people in proportion to the extent of their knowledge, and to give them every facility for obtaining such a degree of knowledge as may render it safe to trust them with absolute power. In the mean time, it is dangerous to praise or condemn constitutions in the abstract; since, from the despotism of St. Petersburg to the democracy of Washington, there is scarcely a form of government which might not, at least in some hypothetical case, be the best possible."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 161-162
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a nineteenth century British poet, historian and Whig politician.
208 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Babington Macaulay →
Related Quotes
"But the time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low, and will flu…"
"It is our deliberate opinion that the French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes and follies, was a great blessing…"
"He William Temple] was merely a man of lively parts and quick observation,—a man of the world amongst men of letters,…"
"The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to …"
"'It is scarcely possible to calculate the benefits which we might derive from the diffusion of European civilisation …"
"It may be that the public mind of India may expand under our system till it has outgrown that system; that by good go…"
"An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia. The smallest actual good is better than the most magnif…"
"To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god. The aim of th…"
"A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no compromise. A pub…"
"Such night in England ne'er had been, nor ne'er again shall be."