Walter Bagehot Quotes

"The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything"

"He believes, with all his heart and soul and strength, that there is such a thing as truth; he has the soul of a martyr with the intellect of an advocate."

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

"Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world."

"The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be."

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

"You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"The beginning of civilization is marked by an intense legality; that legality is the very condition of its existence, the bond which ties it together; but that legality - that tendency to impose a settled customary yoke upon all men and all actions -"

"Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success."

"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

"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."

"It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations."

"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."

"A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault."

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

"Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world."