English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
The positive tastes and tendencies of the English mind confine its training to ascertained learning and definite science.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
In truth, it would seem that, living in the incessant din of a Calvinistic country, the best course for thoughtful and serious men was to be silent.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
It is possible to conceive a character in which but one impulse is ever felt—in which the whole being, as with a single breeze, is carried in a single direction. The only exercise of the will in such a being is in aiding and carrying out the dictates of the single propensity. And this is something.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
To make a single nation illustrate a principle, you must exaggerate much and you must omit much.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Cautious men have many adverbs, "usually," "nearly," "almost ": safe men begin, " it may be advanced " : you never know precisely what their premises are, nor what their conclusion is; they go tremulously like a timid rider; they turn hither and thither; they do not go straight across a subject, like a masterly mind.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
As we gaze on the faces of those whom we love; as we watch the light of life in the dawning of their eyes, and the play of their features, and the wildness of their animation; as we trace in changing lineaments a varying sign; as a charm and a thrill seem to run along the tone of a voice, to haunt the mind with a mere word; as a tone seems to roam in the ear; as a trembling fancy hears words that are unspoken; so in Nature the mystical sense finds a motion in the mountain, and a power in the waves, and a meaning in the long white line of the shore, and a thought in the blue of heaven, and a gushing soul in the buoyant light.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Wit is part of the machinery of the intellect.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Why not leave the reading of great books till a great age? Why plague and perplex childhood with complex facts remote from its experience and inapprehensible by its imagination?
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The terrible difficulty of early life—the use of pastors and masters—really is, that they compel boys to a distinct mastery of that which they do not wish to learn.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Poetry begins in Impersonality. Homer is a voice—a fine voice, a fine eye, and a brain that drew with light; and this is all we know. The natural subjects of the first art are the scenes and events in which the first men naturally take an interest. They don't care—who does ?—for a kind old man; but they want to hear of the exploits of their ancestors —of the heroes of their childhood—of them that their fathers saw—of the founders of their own land—of wars, and rumors of wars—of great victories boldly won—of heavy defeats firmly borne—of desperate disasters unsparingly retrieved.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The trained official hates the rude, untrained public. He thinks that they are stupid, ignorant, reckless—that they cannot tell their own interest—that they should have the leave of the office before they do anything. Protection is the natural inborn creed of every official body; free trade is an extrinsic idea alien to its notions, and hardly to be assimilated with life; and it is easy to see how an accomplished critic, used to a free and active life, could thus describe the official.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
As yet the few rule by their hold, not over the reason of the multitude, but over their imaginations, and their habits; over their fancies as to distant things they do not know at all, over their customs as to near things which they know very well.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
At an election the non-titled are much more powerful than the titled.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Now that the suffrage is universal, the average intellect and the average culture of the constituent bodies are excessively low; and even such mind and culture as there is has long been enslaved to authority.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
An ordinary idle king on a constitutional throne will leave no mark on his time: he will do little good and as little harm.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
In early times the quantity of government is much more important than its quality. What you want is a comprehensive rule binding men together, making them do much the same things, telling them what to expect of each other—fashioning them alike, and keeping them so. What this rule is does not matter so much. A good rule is better than a bad one, but any rule is better than none; while, for reasons which a jurist will appreciate, none can be very good. But to gain that rule, what may be called the impressive elements of a polity are incomparably more important than its useful elements. How to get the obedience of men is the hard problem; what you do with that obedience is less critical.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
But why is one nation stronger than another? In the answer to that, I believe, lies the key to the principal progress of early civilization, and to some of the progress of all civilization. The answer is that there are very many advantages—some small and some great—every one of which tends to make the nation which has it superior to the nation which has it not; that many of these advantages can be imparted to subjugated races, or imitated by competing races; and that, though some of these advantages may be perishable or inimitable, yet, on the whole, the energy of civilization grows by the coalescence of strengths and by the competition of strengths.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
No nation admits of an abstract definition; all nations are beings of many qualities and many sides; no historical event exactly illustrates any one principle; every cause is intertwined and surrounded with a hundred others.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
In true metaphysics I believe that, contrary to common opinion, unbelief far oftener needs a reason and requires an effort than belief.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The power of a government by discussion as an instrument of elevation plainly depends—other things being equal—on the greatness or littleness of the things to be discussed.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics