Quotes by Bagehot, Walter

"So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism -- despotism during the campaign -- is indispensable."

Bagehot, Walter on despotism   

"An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle."

Bagehot, Walter on diplomacy   

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"An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft."

Bagehot, Walter on exaggeration   

"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 voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null."

Bagehot, Walter on free will   

"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 their imaginations."

Bagehot, Walter on government   

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"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."

Bagehot, Walter on innovation   

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"The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards."

Bagehot, Walter on institutions   

"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 about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete."

Bagehot, Walter on law and lawyers   

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"A slight daily unconscious luxury is hardly ever wanting to the dwellers in civilization; like the gentle air of a genial climate, it is a perpetual minute enjoyment."

Bagehot, Walter on luxury   

"We must not let daylight in upon the magic."

Bagehot, Walter on magic
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"Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them."

Bagehot, Walter on women
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"What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind."

Bagehot, Walter on mind
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"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 tend to be the best."

Bagehot, Walter on nations   

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"The cure for admiring the house of lords is to go and look at it."

Bagehot, Walter on observation   

"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 it."

Bagehot, Walter on parliament   

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"A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

Bagehot, Walter on pleasure   

"When great questions end, little parties begin."

Bagehot, Walter on politics   

"The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them."

Bagehot, Walter on politics   

"A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities."

Bagehot, Walter on politics   

"Poverty is an anomaly to rich people. It is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."

Bagehot, Walter on poverty and the poor   

"Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns."

Bagehot, Walter on president   

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"Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison."

Bagehot, Walter on progress   

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"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, to follow other men's habits."

Bagehot, Walter on public opinion   

"A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life."

Bagehot, Walter on royalty   

"The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others."

Bagehot, Walter on royalty   

"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 anywhere in the world understand any other."

Bagehot, Walter on royalty   

"Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions."

Bagehot, Walter on royalty   

"An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind."

Bagehot, Walter on silence   

"Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger."

Bagehot, Walter on belief   

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"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 energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business."

Bagehot, Walter on bureaucracy   

"The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds."

Bagehot, Walter on talkativeness   

"A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself."

Bagehot, Walter on teacher   

"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 have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it."

Bagehot, Walter on world   

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"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, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations."

Bagehot, Walter on war   

"A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind."

Bagehot, Walter on weddings   

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"Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders."

Bagehot, Walter on writers and writing
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"Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world."

Bagehot, Walter on conquest