Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply.… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
The business of banking ought to be simple. If it is hard it is wrong. The only securities which a banker, using… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men,… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Nine tenths of modern science is in this respect the same: it is the produce of men whom their contemporaries thought dreamers… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
But of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
Most men of business think "Anyhow this system will probably last my time. It has gone on a long time, and is likely to… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
The peculiar essence of our banking system is an unprecedented trust between man and man. And when that trust is much weakened by hidden… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
