Walter Bagehot Quotes

A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot

Great, Life, Cannot

A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.
Walter Bagehot

Life, Family, Down

An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
Walter Bagehot

Quiet, Stay, Mankind

It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
Walter Bagehot

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.
Walter Bagehot

Daily, Enjoyment, Air

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
Walter Bagehot

Nature, Pain, Greatest

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.
Walter Bagehot

Men, Words, Thoughts

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.
Walter Bagehot

Long, Wish, Wrong

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

Best, History, Art

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

Best, Reality, Times

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

Great, Made, Popular

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.
Walter Bagehot

Time, Money, Mind

The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.
Walter Bagehot

House, Cure, Admiring

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

Life, Greatest, Cannot

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
Walter Bagehot

Divided, Writers, Teeth

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
Walter Bagehot

Opinions, Common, General

A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
Walter Bagehot

Mother, Wife, Fault

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

Nothing, Big, Less

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

Himself, Walk, Atmosphere

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.
Walter Bagehot

Said, Though, House

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

Simply, Agent, Ambassador

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

Hard, Military, Impact

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.
Walter Bagehot

Success, Good, Government

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
Walter Bagehot

Long, Honor, Commerce

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

Best, Others, State

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Biography

Nationality: English

Type: Author

Born: February 3, 1826

Died: March 24, 1877

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Cite this Page: Citation

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