English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
There are no straight lines in Nature or Shakespeare.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy—a bureaucracy trained from early life to its special avocation—is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business. That art has not yet been condensed into precepts, but a great many experiments have been made, and a vast floating vapor of knowledge floats through society. One of the most sure principles is, that success depends on a due mixture of special and non-special minds—of minds which attend to the means, and of minds which attend to the end.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Early science, it has been said, begins in utter nonsense; it would be truer to say that it starts with boyish fancies.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
As the slap-dash sentences of a rushing critic express the hasty impatience of modern manners; so the deliberate emphasis, the slow acumen, the steady argument, the impressive narration bring before us what is now a tradition, the picture of the correct eighteenth-century gentleman, who never failed in a measured politeness, partly because it was due in propriety towards others, and partly because from his own dignity it was due most obviously to himself.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The thirst of the soul was to be satisfied, the deep torture of the spirit to have rest.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
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
Physics and Politics
Of course there was always some reason (if we only could find it) which gave the prominence in each age to some particular winning literature. There always is some reason why the fashion of female dress is what it is. But just as in the case of dress we know that now-a-days the determining cause is very much of an accident, so in the case of literary fashion, the origin is a good deal of an accident. What the milliners of Paris, or the demi-monde of Paris, enjoin our English ladies, is (I suppose) a good deal chance; but as soon as it is decreed, those whom it suits and those whom it does not all wear it. The imitative propensity at once insures uniformity; and 'that horrid thing we wore last year' (as the phrase may go) is soon nowhere to be seen. Just so a literary fashion spreads, though I am far from saying with equal primitive unreasonableness—a literary taste always begins on some decent reason, but once started, it is propagated as a fashion in dress is propagated; even those who do not like it read it because it is there, and because nothing else is easily to be found.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
But then the mist of battles passes away, and the sound of the daily conflict no longer hurtles in the air, and a generation arises skilled with the skill of peace, and refined with the refinement of civilization, yet still remembering the old world, still appreciating the old life, still wondering at the old men, and ready to receive, at the hand of the poet, a new telling of the old tale.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Much musing, little studying,—fair scholarship, an atmosphere of the classics, curious fancies, much perusing of pamphlets, light thoughts on heavy folios —these make the meditative poet, but not the technical and patient-headed scholar.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers. No doubt by the traditional theory, as it exists in all the books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the legislative and executive authorities, but in truth its merit consists in their singular approximation. The connecting link is the Cabinet. By that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. The legislature has many committees, but this is its greatest. It chooses for this, its main committee, the men in whom it has most confidence. It does not, it is true, choose them directly; but it is nearly omnipotent in choosing them indirectly.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Grave and careful men may have domestic virtues on a constitutional throne, but even these fail sometimes, and to imagine that men of more eager temperaments will commonly produce them, is to expect grapes from thorns and figs from thistles.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The characteristic advantage of a constitutional king is the permanence of his place. This gives him the opportunity of acquiring a consecutive knowledge of complex transactions, but it gives only an opportunity. The king must use it. There is no royal road to political affairs: their detail is vast, disagreeable, complicated, and miscellaneous. A king, to be the equal of his Ministers in discussion, must work as they work; he must be a man of business as they are men of business. Yet a constitutional prince is the man who is most tempted to pleasure, and the least forced to business.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
This is the age of dramatic art, when men wonder at the big characters of old, as schoolboys at the words of Aeschylus, and try to find in their own breasts the roots of those monstrous, but artistically developed impersonations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Those kinds of morals and that kind of religion which tend to make the firmest and most effectual character are sure to prevail, all else being the same; and creeds or systems that conduce to a soft limp mind tend to perish, except some hard extrinsic force keep them alive.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The most difficult of problems is how to change late foes into free friends.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The first prerequisite of elective government is the MUTUAL CONFIDENCE of the electors. We are so accustomed to submit to be ruled by elected Ministers, that we are apt to fancy all mankind would readily be so too. Knowledge and civilisation have at least made this progress, that we instinctively, without argument, almost without consciousness, allow a certain number of specified persons to choose our rulers for us. It seems to us the simplest thing in the world. But it is one of the gravest things.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
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.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The mistake of military ethics is, to exaggerate the conceptions of discipline, and so to present the moral force of the will in a barer form than it ever ought to take: military morals can direct the axe to cut down the trees, but it knows nothing of the quiet force by which the forest grows.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The breed of ancient times was impaired for war by trade and luxury, but the modern breed is not so impaired.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The courage which strengthens an enemy and which so loses, not only the present battle, but many after battles, is a heavy curse to men and nations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution