Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehotwas a British journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, and literature...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 February 1826
time wind law
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.
freedom assuming theocracy
A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.
people political politics
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
fear long judgement
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.
life art philosophy
Life is a school of probability.
sorry real political
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
sacrifice giving political
An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.
magic daylight
We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
progress poison late
Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
exaggeration-is interesting elements
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.
knowing people mind
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.
adventure banking caution
Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking.
banking credit facts
Every banker knows that if he has to prove he is worthy of credit, in fact his credit is gone.
people political opinion
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.