Walter Bagehot Quotes
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To a great experience one thing is essential - an experiencing nature.
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Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.
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A cabinet is a combining committee,-a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other.
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Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
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The purse strings tie us to our kind.
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A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.
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But the Queen has no such veto; She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her.
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So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
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Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.
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A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.
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The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights-the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn.
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A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature - a good bit, of course, but a bit only - in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence.
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The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.
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The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries-the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning-without ever being bound to look at anything.
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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.
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'Maternity,' it has been said, 'is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion.'
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A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
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The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
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Whatever may be the defects of Gibbon's history, none can deny him a proud precision and a style in marching order.