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?
Interpretation
This quote highlights the challenge of determining who should be considered the wisest and best to govern society, making the concept of wise governance complex.
Thomas B. Macaulay's quote reflects on the paradox of relying on the wisdom of the best individuals for societal governance. While it seems logical to trust the insights of the most knowledgeable and moral leaders, the real issue arises in identifying who qualifies as 'the wisest and best.' This ambiguity complicates the notion of what constitutes effective and just leadership, as it prompts questions about biases and subjective judgments inherent in such evaluations.
In practice
This quote can be used during a debate on leadership qualifications.
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!
Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps.
I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.
You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies - though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is.
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.
[Islam] is the dynamic conviction that a person's spiritual and worldly responsibilities are one and the same, that an individuals duty to the community is indistinguishable from his or her duty to God.
There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers after the Truth-have you ever heard of a permanent one?
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