Walter Bagehot Quotes

88 quotes in 1158 categories

• A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at… Admiring
• The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or… Benevolence
• What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind. Impress
• Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity. Bureaucracy
• Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt. Conformity
• It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition'; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as… Administration
• Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world. Beats
• In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest… Best
• A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind. Brilliant
• A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the… Appearance
• In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage; such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the… Advantage
• The Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips, Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair; The Grecian gods are like the Greeks, As keen-eyed, cold and fair. Bronze
• Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilized… Age
• Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do. Compromise
• A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness. Assumes
• I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our… Able
• The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards Afterwards
• The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active… Active
• Honor sinks where commerce long prevails. Commerce
• The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. Achievement

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