The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
– Walter Bagehot
A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
– Walter Bagehot
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
– Walter Bagehot
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
– Walter Bagehot
A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.
– Walter Bagehot
A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.
– Walter Bagehot
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
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
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
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
– Walter Bagehot
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
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
– Walter Bagehot
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
Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
– Walter Bagehot
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
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.
– Walter Bagehot
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
– Walter Bagehot
I started out by believing God for a newer car than the one I was driving. I started out believing God for a nicer apartment than I had. Then I moved up.
– Walter Bagehot
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
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
– Walter Bagehot
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.
– Walter Bagehot
Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
– Walter Bagehot
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
– Walter Bagehot
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
– Walter Bagehot
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.
– Walter Bagehot
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
– Walter Bagehot
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
– Walter Bagehot
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
– Walter Bagehot
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.
– Walter Bagehot
The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.
– Walter Bagehot
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.
– Walter Bagehot
The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.
– Walter Bagehot
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
– Walter Bagehot
We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
– Walter Bagehot
What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
– Walter Bagehot
Woman absent is woman dead.
– Walter Bagehot
Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
– Walter Bagehot
The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
– Walter Bagehot
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
Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
– Walter Bagehot
A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.
