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
government criticism phrases
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 much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government.
hands shoes ties
There seems to be an unalterable contradiction between the human mind and its employments. How can a soul be a merchant? What relation to an immortal being have the price of linseed, the brokerage on hemp? Can an undying creature debit petty expenses and charge for carriage paid? The soul ties its shoes; the mind washes its hands in a basin. All is incongruous.
ambassadors agents diplomacy
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
motivational credit gone
If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.
art light history
The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.
civilization firsts culture
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards
dark moon half
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. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.
faces looks impossible
Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.
book writing people
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
men mind results
What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
aids cardinals establishment
The cardinal maxim is, that any aid to a present bad Bank is the surest mode of preventing the establishment of a future good Bank.
business men mind
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 not look as if it did.
book writing eye
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.
self interest benevolence
Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence.