“I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in the country, such high moral values, people of such caliber, that I do not think we would conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self esteem, their native culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”

—  Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay

This quotation is commonly said to have been spoken by Macaulay during a speech to the British Parliament in 1835. Since Macaulay was in India at the time, it is more likely to have come from his Minute on Indian Education http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html. However, these words do not appear in that text. According to Koenraad Elst http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/hinduism/macaulay.html, these words were printed in The Awakening Ray, Vol. 4, No. 5, published by the Gnostic Center, preceded by: "His words were to the effect." Burjor Avari cites this misattribution as an example of "tampering with historical evidence" in India: The Ancient Past ISBN 9780415356169, pp. 19–20), writes: "No proof of this statement has been found in any of the volumes containing the writings and speeches of Macaulay. In a journal in which the extract appeared, the writer did not reproduce the exact wording of the Minutes, but merely paraphrased them, using the qualifying phrase: ‘His words were to the effect.:’ This is extremely mischievous, as numerous interpretations can be drawn from the Minutes." For a full discussion, see Koenraad Elst, The Argumentative Hindu (2012) Chapter 3
Misattributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief.…" by Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay?
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay 101
British historian and Whig politician 1800–1859

Related quotes

Bernie Sanders photo

“Open borders? […] That's a right-wing proposal, which says essentially there is no United States. […] It would make everybody in America poorer. You're doing away with the concept of a nation state, and I don't think there's any country in the world that believes in that. If you believe in a country called the United States or any other country, you have an obligation to do everything we can to help poor people. What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that would be great for them. I don't believe in that. I think we have to raise wages in this country, I think we have to do everything we can to create millions of jobs.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Interview with Ezra Klein (29 July 2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf-k6qOfXz0
2010s, 2015

Hu Shih photo

“India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.”

Hu Shih (1891–1962) Chinese philosopher, essayist and diplomat

As quoted in Consolation of Mind (2004) by H. K. Suhas, p. 111

David Duke photo

“I’m often called, so often called in the media, it’s like a part of my name “white supremacist” or whatever. I’m not one. I don’t want white people to be supreme. I don’t believe, in fact, that we should even have bases in 65 countries of the world I don’t think we should be in Iraq. I don’t believe we should try to control politics of the South American countries or the Southeast Asia or in Africa, or anywhere else in the world. But I do think we have a right to preserve our own culture, own heritage in our own country.”

David Duke (1950) American White nationalist, white supremacist, writer, right-wing politician, and a former Republican Louisiana …

Podcast (4 July 2006)

Herman Cain photo

“There are tons of capable people in this country, and while I have been in this exploratory phase, yes, I have been considering who would I put in various roles, who do I consider to be some of the true patriots of this country that could help a Herman Cain cabinet if I were to run and to become president. And so yes, so far I have not come across or I don't have acquaintances with people who have professed the Muslim religion who are on a list of people I would consider. We are—we have become a nation of crises, Neil. And being politically correct is not something I'm going to spend a whole lot of time worrying about when we've got all of these other problems that we are facing right here in this country.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Your World w/ Cavuto
Television
Fox News
2011-03-28, quoted in [Herman Cain Can't Find Any Qualified, Patriotic Muslims, 2011-03-28, Political Correction, Media Matters for America, http://politicalcorrection.org/video/201103280016, 2011-10-07]

Ernst Gombrich photo

“Whether we know it or not, we always approach the past with some preconceived ideas, with a rudimentary theory we wish to test. In this as in many other respects the cultural historian does not differ all that much from his predecessor, the traveller to foreign lands. Not the professional traveller who is only interested in one particular errand, be it the exploration of a country’s kinship system or its hydroelectric schemes, but the broad-minded traveller who wants to understand the culture of the country in which he finds himself.”

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) art historian

In Search of Cultural History (1969)

Sri Aurobindo photo

“One thing seems at any rate certain, that the spiritual motive will be in the future of India, as in her past, the real originative and dominating strain. By spirituality we do not mean a remote metaphysical mind or the tendency to dream rather than to act. That was not the great India of old in her splendid days of vigour, — whatever certain European critics or interpreters of her culture may say, — and it will not be the India of the future. Metaphysical thinking will always no doubt be a strong element in her mentality, and it is to be hoped that she will never lose her great, her sovereign powers in that direction…”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Renaissance in India (1918)

“I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.”

Angela Carter (1940–1992) English novelist

Interview http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/85_01_20.pdf in Marxism Today, January 1985.
Context: I'm interested in the division that Judeo-Christianity has made between human nature and animal nature. None of the other great faiths in the world have got quite that division between us and them. None of the others has made this enormous division between birds and beasts who, as Darwin said, would have developed consciences if they'd had the chance, and us. I think it's one of the scars in Western Europe. I think it's one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves. We align ourselves with the angels instead of the higher primates.

Samuel P. Huntington photo

“The leaders of the United States have not only permitted that but assiduously promoted the diversity rather than the unity of the people they govern.
The leaders of other countries have, as we have seen, at times attempted to disavow their cultural heritage and shift the identity of their country from one civilization to another. In no case to date have they succeeded and they have instead created schizophrenic torn countries. The American multiculturalists similarly reject their country’s cultural heritage. Instead of attempting to identify the United States with another civilization, however, they wish to create a country of many civilizations, which is to say a country not belonging to any civilization and lacking a cultural core. History shows that no country so constituted can long endure as a coherent society. A multicivilizational United States will not be the United States; it will be the United Nations.”

Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008) American political scientist

Source: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996), Ch. 12 : The West, Civilizations, and Civilization, § 1 : The Renewal Of The West?, p. 306

Maxine Waters photo

“I think we have to say it's okay to be angry. It's not all right to be violent. I know it would make people happy if I said I could wave my hand and make people behave less violently. I am not that presumptuous. We have a moral responsibility to share the resources of this country.”

Maxine Waters (1938) U.S. Representative from California

Washington Post (1 May 1992)

“In my sleep, which is the song of the tombs, I have just seen her again, as beautiful as in her youth.”

Albert Cohen (1895–1981) Swiss writer

Le livre de ma mère [The Book of My Mother] (1954)

Related topics