WALTER BAGEHOT QUOTES V

English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)


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It is a great gain to society to have two idols: in the competition of idolatries the true worship gets a chance.

WALTER BAGEHOT
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The English Constitution


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Tags: chance


The simple round of daily pleasures and genial employments which give instinctive happiness to the happiest natures, and best cheer the common life of common men, was studiously watched and scrutinized with the energy of a Puritan and the watchfulness of an inquisitor.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: happiness


The power of a government by discussion as an instrument of elevation plainly depends—other things being equal—on the greatness or littleness of the things to be discussed.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: government


The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. 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. The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, "Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?" the inquiry comes out thus—"Will you be governed in a way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not understand?" The issue was put to the French people; they were asked, "Will you be governed by Louis Napoleon, or will you be governed by an assembly?" The French people said, "We will be governed by the one man we can imagine, and not by the many people we cannot imagine".

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: action


the academies are asylums of the ideas and the tastes of the last age.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: age


Nations touch at their summits.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution


Most men mostly imitate what they see, and catch the tone of what they hear, and so a settled type—a persistent character—is formed.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: Men


Man, being the strongest of all animals, differs from the rest; he was obliged to be his own domesticator; he had to tame himself.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: animals


It is only people who have had a tooth out, that really know the dentist's waiting room.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: waiting


In truth, it would seem that, living in the incessant din of a Calvinistic country, the best course for thoughtful and serious men was to be silent.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Men


In true metaphysics I believe that, contrary to common opinion, unbelief far oftener needs a reason and requires an effort than belief.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: belief


In the most intellectual city of the ancient world, in its most intellectual age, Socrates, its most intellectual inhabitant, discouraged the study of physics because they engendered uncertainty, and did not augment human happiness. The kind of knowledge which is most connected with human progress now was that least connected with it then.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: age


If happily, by its intelligence and attractiveness, a Cabinet can gain a hold upon the great middle part of Parliament, it will continue to exist notwithstanding the hatching of small plots and the machinations of mean factions.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: intelligence


Cautious men have many adverbs, "usually," "nearly," "almost ": safe men begin, " it may be advanced " : you never know precisely what their premises are, nor what their conclusion is; they go tremulously like a timid rider; they turn hither and thither; they do not go straight across a subject, like a masterly mind.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: Men


An hereditary king is but an ordinary person, upon an average, at best; he is nearly sure to be badly educated for business; he is very little likely to have a taste for business; he is solicited from youth by every temptation to pleasure; he probably passed the whole of his youth in the vicious situation of the heir-apparent, who can do nothing because he has no appointed work, and who will be considered almost to outstep his function if he undertake optional work. For the most part, a constitutional king is a DAMAGED common man; not forced to business by necessity as a despot often is, but yet spoiled for business by most of the temptations which spoil a despot. History, too, seems to show that hereditary royal families gather from the repeated influence of their corrupting situation some dark taint in the blood, some transmitted and growing poison which hurts their judgments, darkens all their sorrow, and is a cloud on half their pleasure. It has been said, not truly, but with a possible approximation to truth, "That in 1802 every hereditary monarch was insane". Is it likely that this sort of monarchs will be able to catch the exact moment when, in opposition to the wishes of a triumphant Ministry, they ought to dissolve Parliament? To do so with efficiency they must be able to perceive that the Parliament is wrong, and that the nation knows it is wrong. Now to know that Parliament is wrong, a man must be, if not a great statesman, yet a considerable statesman—a statesman of some sort. He must have great natural vigor, for no less will comprehend the hard principles of national policy. He must have incessant industry, for no less will keep him abreast with the involved detail to which those principles relate, and the miscellaneous occasions to which they must be applied. A man made common by nature, and made worse by life, is not likely to have either; he is nearly sure not to be BOTH clever and industrious. And a monarch in the recesses of a palace, listening to a charmed flattery unbiased by the miscellaneous world, who has always been hedged in by rank, is likely to be but a poor judge of public opinion. He may have an inborn tact for finding it out; but his life will never teach it him, and will probably enfeeble it in him.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: business


All the ordinary incidents of an easy life were made the most of; a party was epistolary capital, a race a mine of wealth. So deeply sentimental was this intercourse, that it was much argued whether the affections were created for the sake of the ink, or ink for the sake of the affections.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: life


A single run of luck has made the fortune of many a charm and many idols.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: charm


What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing ... a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: custom


There is, as yet, no Act of Parliament compelling a bona fide traveler to read. If you wish him to read, you must make reading pleasant. You must give him short views, and clear sentences.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: reading


The terrible difficulty of early life—the use of pastors and masters—really is, that they compel boys to a distinct mastery of that which they do not wish to learn.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies