All Quotes by Walter Bagehot
“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people who can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.”
“Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us.”
“Whatever may be the defects of Gibbon's history, none can deny him a proud precision and a style in marching order.”
“... The fame of Gibbon is highest among writers; those especially who have studied for years particular periods included in his theme (and how many those are; for in the East and West he has set his mark on all that is great for ten centuries!) acutely feel and admiringly observe how difficult it would be to say so much, and leave so little untouched ; to compress so many telling points; to present in so few words so apt and embracing a narrative of the whole.”
“A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.”
“In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. But, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit. And as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too.”
“A cabinet is a combining committee,—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other.”
“Cabinet governments educate the nation; the presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it.”
“But the Queen has no such veto; She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her.”
“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.”
“Nations touch at their summits.”
“Whatever expenditure is sanctioned—even when it is sanctioned against the ministry's wish—the ministry must find the money. Accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay.... The ministry is (so to speak) the breadwinner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory; just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of his daughters.”
“The caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged.”
“Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.”
“The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries—the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning—without ever being bound to look at anything.”
“The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.”
“Maternity," it has been said, "is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion.”
“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.”
“Most men of business think "Anyhow this system will probably last my time. It has gone on a long time, and is likely to go on still."”
“Credit means that a certain confidence is given, and a certain trust reposed. Is that trust justified? and is that confidence wise? These are the cardinal questions. To put it more simply credit is a set of promises to pay; will those promises be kept?”
“The less money lying idle the greater is the dividend.”
“The name ‘London Banker’ had especially a charmed value. He was supposed to represent, and often did represent, a certain union of pecuniary sagacity and educated refinement which was scarcely to be found in any other part of society.”
“To a great experience one thing is essential — an experiencing nature.”
“The purse strings tie us to our kind.”
“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.”
“A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature — a good bit, of course, but a bit only — in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence.”
“A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.”
“You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor... Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.”
“It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.”
“[Of Guizot] A Puritan born in France by mistake.”
“Every trouble in life is a joke compared to madness.”