WALTER BAGEHOT QUOTES VIII

English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)

The evils of a bad tax are quite sure to be pressed upon the ears of Parliament in season and out of season; the few persons who have to pay it are thoroughly certain to make themselves heard.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution


The American Government calls itself a Government of the supreme people; but at a quick crisis, the time when a sovereign power is most needed, you cannot FIND the supreme people. You have got a Congress elected for one fixed period, going out perhaps by fixed instalments, which cannot be accelerated or retarded—you have a President chosen for a fixed period, and immovable during that period: all the arrangements are for STATED times. There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated. Come what may, you can quicken nothing, and can retard nothing. You have bespoken your Government in advance, and whether it suits you or not, whether it works well or works ill, whether it is what you want or not, by law you must keep it.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: government


Nobody cares for a debate in Congress which "comes to nothing," and no one reads long articles which have no influence on events.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: Congress


It is by examining very bare, very dull, very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: science


Yet it must be allowed that Shakespeare was worldly, and the proof of it is, that he succeeded in the world. Possibly this is the point on which we are most richly indebted to tradition. We see generally indeed in Shakespeare's works the popular author, the successful dramatist; there is a life and play in his writings rarely to be found, except in those who have had habitual good luck, and who, by the tact of experience, feel the minds of their readers at every word, as a good rider feels the mouth of his horse.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: experience


The English people do not easily change their rooted notions, but they have many unrooted notions.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: change


In the great histories there are two topics of interest—the man as a type of the age in which he lives,—the events and manners of the age he is describing; very often almost all the interest is the contrast of the two.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: age


The old pagan has a sympathy with the religion of enthusiasm far above the reach of the modern Epicurean.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: religion


Nations touch at their summits.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution


The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) 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: progress


"Maternity," it has been said, "is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion."

WALTER BAGEHOT

Physics and Politics

Tags: fathers


But what are nations? What are these groups which are so familiar to us, and yet if we stop to think, so strange; which are as old as history ... what breaks the human race up into fragments so unlike one another, and yet each in its interior so monotonous?

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

Tags: discipline


A great theory, called the theory of "Checks and Balances," pervades an immense part of political literature, and much of it is collected from or supported by English experience. Monarchy, it is said, has some faults, some bad tendencies, aristocracy others, democracy, again, others; but England has shown that a Government can be constructed in which these evil tendencies exactly check, balance, and destroy one another—in which a good whole is constructed not simply in spite of, but by means of, the counteracting defects of the constituent parts.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: theory


Probably in most cases the greatest wisdom of a constitutional king would show itself in well-considered inaction.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: wisdom


t is idle to expect an ordinary man born in the purple to have greater genius than an extraordinary man born out of the purple; to expect a man whose place has always been fixed to have a better judgment than one who has lived by his judgment; to expect a man whose career will be the same whether he is discreet or whether he is indiscreet to have the nice discretion of one who has risen by his wisdom, who will fall if he ceases to be wise.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution

Tags: genius


There was a great deal of excellent hammering hammered in the parish, and it was sinful that a man with nothing to do should sit tranquil.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies


If France had more men of firm will, quiet composure, with a suspicion of enormous principle and a taste for moderate improvement: if a Whig party, in a word, were possible in France, France would be free.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: France


Sydney Smith was an after-dinner writer. His words have a flow, a vigor, an expression, which is not given to hungry mortals. You seem to read of good wine, of good cheer, of beaming and buoyant enjoyment. There is little trace of labor in his composition ; it is poured forth like an unceasing torrent, rejoicing daily to run its course.

WALTER BAGEHOT

Literary Studies

Tags: labor


People, in all but the most favored times and places, are rooted to the places where they were born, think the thoughts of those places, can endure no other thoughts. The next parish even is suspected.

WALTER BAGEHOT

The English Constitution