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
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.
pain ideas innovation
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
music communication silence
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
faces looks impossible
Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.
real essence energy
The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
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.
ambassadors agents diplomacy
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
stupidity consistency quality
What we opprobriously call stupidity, though not an enlivening quality in common society, is nature's favorite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion.
reflection doe melancholy
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 harm.
world being-the-best certain
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.
marriage facts brilliant
A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.
religious military analogies
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 Jewish advantage never did so; beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.
daughter wife political
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.
kind obstruction greater
Throughout the greater part of his life George III was a kind of 'consecrated obstruction'.