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.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a disdain for a controlling government that dictates personal choices.
Thomas B. Macaulay's quote highlights the frustration of individuals who are not accustomed to authoritarian control when faced with a government that excessively meddles in their personal lives. It emphasizes the natural human desire for freedom and autonomy, suggesting that a government that imposes limits on personal freedoms is resented by those who value independence and self-direction.
In practice
During a political debate, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of personal freedoms.
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!
...It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.
a person is never entirely holy or entirely sinful.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth.
Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons.
Good and evil both increase at compound interest.
It is our responsibility to explain to the public how an often unpredictable system of justice is one that serves a productive, civilized, but always evolving, society.
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