I wish I was as sure of anything as he is of everything.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a longing for the certainty and confidence that others possess.
This quote by Thomas B. Macaulay expresses a desire for the kind of unwavering confidence that some individuals exhibit in their beliefs and decisions. It highlights the human experience of self-doubt and the yearning for a more resolute understanding of oneβs own thoughts and convictions, suggesting that certainty can bring a sense of peace and clarity that many desire.
In practice
During a motivational speech about self-belief.
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.
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!
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?
A drop of ink may make a million think.
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Our actions are in our own hands, but the consequences of them are not. Remember that, my dear, and think twice before you do anything.
The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self.
I see the cure is not worth the pain.
Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn.
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