The peculiar essence of our banking system is an unprecedented trust between man and man. And when that trust is much weakened… — 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
The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English which have a long history of continuous creation, is that… — 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
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor. — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the… — Walter Bagehot Copy Share Image
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. It...makes you think that after all, your… — 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
