Language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical.
Thomas B. MacaulayWe know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.
Thomas B. Macaulay