Walter Bagehot Quotes

88 quotes in 1158 categories

• The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
• When great questions end, little parties begin.
• The maxim of science is simply that of common sense-simple cases first; begin with seeing how the main force acts when there is as little…
• War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience,…
• In my youth I hoped to do great things; now I shall be satisfied to get through without scandal.
• The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
• History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and…
• One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
• Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind…
• We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
• Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.
• The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly…
• The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to…
• So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
• Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
• It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of…
• Business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply. But it does…
• The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.
• The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms…
• Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words,…

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