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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.
Walter Bagehot -
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
Walter Bagehot
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The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.
Walter Bagehot -
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
Walter Bagehot -
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?
Walter Bagehot -
A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.
Walter Bagehot -
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.
Walter Bagehot -
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
Walter Bagehot
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No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
Walter Bagehot -
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
Walter Bagehot -
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.
Walter Bagehot -
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
Walter Bagehot -
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
Walter Bagehot -
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
Walter Bagehot
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Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
Walter Bagehot -
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.'
Walter Bagehot -
The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
Walter Bagehot -
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.
Walter Bagehot -
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
Walter Bagehot -
Of Guizot A Puritan born in France by mistake.
Walter Bagehot
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Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
Walter Bagehot -
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.
Walter Bagehot -
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.
Walter Bagehot -
Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
Walter Bagehot