Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

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.

You need to mesh the voices of people with expertise and meritocracy.

Many have ruled well who could not perhaps define a Commonwealth.

In Ireland we got into the habit of electing our intellectual inferiors to high public office.

I believe in a Republic of Merit in which water is allowed to find its own level, where voters, like drivers, are tested before being turned loose.

It's one thing to talk about lack of diversity and lack of representation. But that doesn't matter if you're not good at what you're supposed to be doing.

No one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another .... The duties of all public officers are ... so plain and simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance.

In appointments to office the government refuses to know any difference between descriptions of republicans…

Talents & science are sufficient motives with me in appointments to which they are fitted.

There never was a time when the services of those who possess talents, integrity, firmness, and sound judgment, were more wanted in Congress.

He’ll make a fine President. He was the best clerk who ever served under me.

Is there so great a superfluity of men fit for high duties, that society can afford to reject the service of any competent person?

No executive functionaries should be appointed by popular election: neither by the votes of the people themselves, nor by those of their representatives. The entire business of government is skilled employment; the qualifications for the discharge of it are of that special and professional kind which cannot be properly judged of except by persons who have themselves some share of those qualifications, or some practical experience of them.

In a country where offices are created solely for the benefit of the people no one man has any more intrinsic right to official station than another.

I shall make honesty, capacity, and fidelity indispensable prerequisites to the bestowal of office, and the absence of either of these qualities shall be deemed sufficient cause for removal.

I would rather have a Scot come from Scotland to govern the people of this kingdom well and justly than that you should govern them ill in the sight of all the world

At that time I believed in the Führer principle because to me it meant that the best one should be the leader. If the leader is good and responsible, then the government is good.

I wonder truly at your insolence, that, whereas by God's favor and mine, you have occupied the rank and office of the wise, you have neglected the studies and labors of the wise. Either, therefore, at once give up the discharge of the temporal duties which you hold, or endeavor more zealously to study the lessons of wisdom. Such are my commands.

In the democratic forms of government the operation of universal suffrage tends toward the selection of the average man for public office rather than the man qualified by birth, education, and integrity.... From a racial point of view, it will inevitably increase the preponderance of the lower types and cause a corresponding loss of efficiency in the community as a whole

Ability and fitness for the office, where they exist, are as a rule, purely accidental. The selection is made primarily to strengthen the power of the party. This explains the principle by which appointments are parceled out to meet the alleged claims of particular political districts; it also explains the even more vicious principle by which race, nationality and creed often dictate the selection of Magistrates.

I had rather wise men to govern me, even though at times they should be severe, even fools. I care not where they come from, so they be men of sense and experience; let them be taken from the plough, from the mechanick’s bench, or from behind the counter.

We in America are obsessed with elections. Elections are a waste of time. Unless you have a cohort of political leadership as with a Washington, Madison and Jefferson, what is the point of having an election? So some fool will get elected and be nominally in charge and is not really leading a cohort. There is no sense of political coherence among the elite about what the state is going to be.

The principle which the Queen would wish to see acted upon in her diplomatic appointments in general, is, that the good of the service should precede every other consideration, and that the selection of an agent should depend more on his personal qualifications for the particular post for which he is to be selected than on the mere pleasure and convenience of the person to be employed, or of the Minister recommending him.

I saw Mr. Lincoln a number of times during the canvass for his second election. The characteristic which struck me most was his superabundance of common sense. His power of managing men, of deciding and avoiding difficult questions, surpassed that of any man I ever met.

I have always felt that for local offices in a small place, where everybody knows everyone else, the vote should be more a question of the man than one of party allegiance.