We must judge of a form of government by it's general tendency, not by happy accidents
Interpretation
The effectiveness of a government should be evaluated based on its overall impact rather than isolated fortunate events.
This quote by Thomas B. Macaulay emphasizes the importance of assessing a government's performance through its broader tendencies and outcomes, rather than being swayed by isolated positive incidents that may occur. It encourages a critical and long-term examination of governance, advocating for an understanding of its principles and philosophies that shape society, rather than relying on transient successes that may not reflect its true character.
In practice
During a political debate, one might use this quote to argue that policies should be evaluated for their long-term effects rather than temporary successes.
None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.
To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or because he is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man, because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.
Mere negation, mere Epicurean infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes, has never disturbed the peace of the world. It furnishes no motive for action; it inspires no enthusiasm; it has no missionaries, no crusades, no martyrs.
What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!
The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.
A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. ... A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.
A tear that trembles for a little while _x000D_ Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world _x000D_ Wavers within its circle like a dream, _x000D_ Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb _x000D_ Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.
The self is our life's goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality.
I think it is wrong to expect certainties in this world, where all else but God that is Truth is an uncertainty. All that appears and happens about and around us is uncertain, transient. But there is a Supreme Being hidden therein as a Certainty, and one would be blessed if one could catch a glimpse of that Certainty and hitch one's waggon to it. The quest for that Truth is the summum bonum of life.
It was not meant that the soul should cultivate the earth, but that the earth should educate and maintain the soul.
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