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Walter Bagehot

78 quotes

“The characteristic danger of great nations like the Romans or the English, which have a long history of continuous creation, is, that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lord Althorpe and the Great Reform Act of 1832" (1876) in Works, vol. 3 (Hartford, 1889) p. 310
“The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people who can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The worst families are those in which the members never really speak their minds to one another; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality, and everyone always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill-feeling.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatever may be the defects of Gibbon's history, none can deny him a proud precision and a style in marching order.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... Practical people have little idea of the practical ability required to write a large book, and especially a large history. Long before you get to the pen, there is an immensity of pure business: heaps of material are strewn every where; but they lie in disorder, unread, uncatalogued, unknown. It seems a dreary waste of life to be analysing, indexing, extracting works and passages, in which one per cent of the contents are interesting, and not half of that per centage will ultimately appear in the flowing narrative.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... The fame of Gibbon is highest among writers; those especially who have studied for years particular periods included in his theme (and how many those are; for in the East and West he has set his mark on all that is great for ten centuries!) acutely feel and admiringly observe how difficult it would be to say so much, and leave so little untouched ; to compress so many telling points; to present in so few words so apt and embracing a narrative of the whole.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“... Satan is made interesting. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and even heterodox writers against Milton.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The masses are infinitely too ignorant to make much of governing themselves.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A new Constitution does not produce its full effect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old Constitution, as long as its statesmen were trained by that old Constitution. It is not really tested till it comes to be worked by statesmen and among a people neither of whom are guided by a different experience.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) first seen 1872 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Introduction to the Second Edition (1872), p. ix
“A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the mass of the old electors did not analyse very much: they liked to have one of their "betters" to represent them; if he was rich they respected him much; and if he was a lord, they liked him the better. The issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose? And each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose notions were the notions of the rich—whose plans were their plans. The electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the schemes of one or two wealthy associations.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) first seen 1832 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The "old electors" Bagehot refers to were the £10 borough householders enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832.
“In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with. But, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit. And as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An ancient and ever-altering constitution is like an old man who still wears with attached fondness clothes in the fashion of his youth: what you see of him is the same; what you do not see is wholly altered.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No orator ever made an impression by appealing to men as to their plainest physical wants, except when he could allege that those wants were caused by some one’s tyranny. But thousands have made the greatest impression by appealing to some vague dream of glory, or empire, or nationality.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A cabinet is a combining committee,—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cabinet governments educate the nation; the presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. 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 (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The masses of Englishmen are not fit for an elective government.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But the Queen has no such veto; She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A constitutional sovereign must in the common course of government be a man of but common ability. I am afraid, looking to the early acquired feebleness of hereditary dynasties, that we must expect him to be a man of inferior ability. Theory and experience both teach that the education of a prince can be but a poor education, and that a royal family will generally have less ability than other families.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A pompous man easily sweeps away the suggestions of those beneath him.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To wish to be a despot ... marks in our day an uncultivated mind.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[T]he two most singular prerogatives of an English king [are] the power of creating new peers and the power of dissolving the Commons.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[W]hatever is unnecessary in government is pernicious.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An Act of Parliament is at least as complex as a marriage settlement; and it is made much as a settlement would be if it were left to the vote and settled by the major part of persons concerned, including the unborn children.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The best test of a machine is the work it turns out. Let any one who knows what legal documents ought to be, read first a will he has just been making and then an Act of Parliament; he will certainly say, “I would have dismissed my attorney if he had done my business as the legislature has done the nation’s business.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[A]dministration is an art as painting is an art; and ... no book can teach the practice of either.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nations touch at their summits.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It always perhaps happens in a great nation, that certain bodies of sensible men posted prominently in its constitution, acquire functions, and usefully exercise functions, which at the outset, no one expected from them, and which do not identify themselves with their original design. This has happened to the House of Lords especially.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“An assembly in which the mass of the members have nothing to lose, where most have nothing to gain, where every one has a social position firmly fixed, where no one has a constituency, where hardly any one cares for the minister of the day, is the very assembly in which to look for, from which to expect, independent criticism.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A good horse likes to feel the rider’s bit; and a great deliberative assembly likes to feel that it is under worthy guidance. A minister who succumbs to the House,—who ostentatiously seeks its pleasure,—who does not try to regulate it,—who will not boldly point out plain errors to it, seldom thrives. The great leaders of Parliament have varied much, but they have all had a certain firmness. A great assembly is as soon spoiled by over-indulgence as a little child.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whatever expenditure is sanctioned—even when it is sanctioned against the ministry's wish—the ministry must find the money. Accordingly, they have the strongest motive to oppose extra outlay.... The ministry is (so to speak) the breadwinner of the political family, and has to meet the cost of philanthropy and glory; just as the head of a family has to pay for the charities of his wife and the toilette of his daughters.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nobody will understand parliamentary government who fancies it an easy thing, a natural thing, a thing not needing explanation.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If happily, by its intelligence and attractiveness, a cabinet can gain a hold upon the great middle part of Parliament, it will continue to exist notwithstanding the hatching of small plots and the machinations of mean factions.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest teacher of all in Parliament, the head-master of the nation, the great elevator of the country—so far as Parliament elevates it—must be the Prime Minister.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great maxim of modern thought is not only the toleration of everything, but the examination of everything. It is by examining very bare, very dull, very unpromising things, that modern science has come to be what it is.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In many matters of business, perhaps in most, a continuity of mediocrity is better than a hotch-potch of excellences.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trained official hates the rude, untrained public.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“France elects its ruler in the streets of Paris.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“According to our system the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the enemy of the Exchequer; a whole series of enactments try to protect it from him.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It appears to me that the functions of our executive in dissolving the Commons and augmenting the Peers are among the most important, and the least appreciated, parts of our whole government, and that hundreds of errors have been made in copying the English Constitution from not comprehending them.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The ultimate authority in the English Constitution is a newly-elected House of Commons.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Nothing, perhaps, would more surprise the English people than if the Queen by a coup d’état and on a sudden destroyed a ministry firm in the allegiance and secure of a majority in Parliament. That power, indisputably, in theory, belongs to her; but it has passed so far away from the minds of men that it would terrify them, if she used it, like a volcanic eruption from Primrose Hill.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries—the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning—without ever being bound to look at anything.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks about them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our revolution has been called the minimum of a revolution, because in law, at least, it only changed the dynasty, but exactly on that account it was the greatest shock to the common multitude, who see the dynasty but see nothing else.”
Walter Bagehot (1826–1877) said by 1877 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source