Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
Thomas B. MacaulayRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that no method of appointing leaders guarantees their wisdom.
Thomas B. Macaulay's quote critiques various methods of selecting magistrates, such as election, chance, or inheritance, arguing that none provide assurance that the appointed individual is wiser than those around them. He highlights a skeptical view of leadership, emphasizing the randomness and inherent risks of placing individuals in positions of power without a reliable measure of their wisdom or capability compared to their peers.
Themes
LeadershipWisdomGovernancePower
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about political leadership during a town hall meeting.
More from Thomas B. Macaulay
All quotes →I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.
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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.
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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.
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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!
Thomas B. MacaulayRead
And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?
Thomas B. MacaulayRead
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