Talk:Walter Bagehot

Unsourced

Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Walter Bagehot. --Antiquary 17:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

• A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

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

• A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.

• A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

• 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.

• 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. [Multiple attributions, but most commonly (according to Google) attributed to A. C. Benson]

• An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.

• 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.

• An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.

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

• 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.

• History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it.

• 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 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.

• Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.

• Much has been written about panics and manias, much more than with the most outstretched intellect we are able to follow or conceive; but one thing is certain, that at particular times a great deal of stupid people have a great deal of stupid money. [This is from Bagehot's Literary Studies: Edward Gibbon]. See http://books.google.com/books?id=V6JYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=bagehot+%22stupid+money%22+%22stupid+people%22&source=bl&ots=frZRe78tRd&sig=OGBZf1OC65JrJcmlXU4KKg6i4GM&hl=en&ei=52ykTs6TAoq6tgfyw6iWBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

• No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

• Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.

• Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.

• So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

• The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

• 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.

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

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

• The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency.

• The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

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

• We must not let daylight in upon the magic.

• What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.

• Woman absent is woman dead.

• Writers, like teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders.

• To illustrate a principle, you must exaggerate much and you must omit much.

Unsourced

• "If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone."

  The fall of Bear Stearns: Bearing all, The Economist

Links to Wikisource

I note that there are broken links to Wikisource, e.g. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_English_Constitution_(1894)/Introduction#xiii, which appears to work if changed to https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_English_Constitution_(1894)/Introduction_to_the_Second_Edition#xiii . Since I am not sure what the best approach is – update here or redirect there – I am reluctant to change this. PJTraill (talk) 10:52, 25 June 2015 (UTC)