Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
421
AUTHOR:
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59)
QUOTATION:
I have not the smallest doubt that, if we had a purely democratic government here, the effect would be the same. Either the poor would plunder the rich, and civilisation would perish; or order and property would be saved by a strong military government, and liberty would perish.
ATTRIBUTION:
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, letter to Henry Stephens Randall, May 23, 1857.—The Letters of Thomas Babington Macaulay, ed. Thomas Pinney, vol. 6, pp. 94–95 (1981).
