English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
It is only people who have had a tooth out, that really know the dentist's waiting room.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
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. There is an advocate for every interest, and every interest clamours for every advantage.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
No one should be surprised at the prominence given to war. We are dealing with early ages: nation-making is the occupation of man in these ages, and it is war that makes nations.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
There are many of our powers and faculties only in a subordinate degree under the control of the emotions; the intellect itself in many moments requires to be bent to defined attention by compulsion of the will; no mere intensity of desire will thrust it on its tasks. But of what in most men is the characteristic action of the will—namely, self-control— such natures are hardly in want. An ultimate case could be imagined in which they would not need it at all. They have no lower desires to pull down, for they have no higher ones which come into collision with them.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
But no man would select the cadets of an aristocratic house as desirable administrators. They have peculiar disadvantages in the acquisition of business knowledge, business training, and business habits, and they have no peculiar advantages.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Some inquire from genuine love of knowledge, or from a real wish to improve what they ask about; others to see their name in the papers.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Not only does the nation endure a Parliamentary government, which it would not do if Parliament were immoderate, but it likes Parliamentary government. A sense of satisfaction permeates the country because most or the country feels it has got the precise thing that suits it.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The nation, even if it chose for itself, would, in some degree, be an unskilled body; but when it does not choose for itself, but only as latent agitators wish, it is like a large, lazy man, with a small vicious mind.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
And the change in the appearance of books has been accompanied — has been caused—by a similar change in readers. What a transition from the student of former ages!—from a grave man, with grave cheeks and a considerate eye, who spends his life in study, has no interest in the outward world, hears nothing of its din, and cares nothing for its honors, who would gladly learn and gladly teach, whose whole soul is taken up with a few books of "Aristotle and his Philosophy,"—to the merchant in the railway, with a head full of sums, an idea that tallow is "up," a conviction that teas are "lively," and a mind reverting perpetually from the little volume which he reads to these mundane topics, to the railway, to the shares, to the buying and bargaining universe. We must not wonder that the outside of books is so different, when the inner nature of those for whom they are written is so changed.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The efficient secret of the English Constitution may be described as the close union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers. No doubt by the traditional theory, as it exists in all the books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the legislative and executive authorities, but in truth its merit consists in their singular approximation. The connecting link is the Cabinet. By that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. The legislature has many committees, but this is its greatest. It chooses for this, its main committee, the men in whom it has most confidence. It does not, it is true, choose them directly; but it is nearly omnipotent in choosing them indirectly.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
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
introduction, The English Constitution
The first prerequisite of elective government is the MUTUAL CONFIDENCE of the electors. We are so accustomed to submit to be ruled by elected Ministers, that we are apt to fancy all mankind would readily be so too. Knowledge and civilisation have at least made this progress, that we instinctively, without argument, almost without consciousness, allow a certain number of specified persons to choose our rulers for us. It seems to us the simplest thing in the world. But it is one of the gravest things.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The old excitement of thought has half died out, or rather it is diffused in quiet pleasure over a life instead of being concentrated in intense and eager spasms.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The more we study the nature of Cabinet government, the more we shall shrink from exposing at a vital instant its delicate machinery to a blow from a casual, incompetent, and perhaps semi-insane outsider.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The least veracious man will tell truly the color of his coat, the hour of his dinner, the materials of his shoes.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
But then the mist of battles passes away, and the sound of the daily conflict no longer hurtles in the air, and a generation arises skilled with the skill of peace, and refined with the refinement of civilization, yet still remembering the old world, still appreciating the old life, still wondering at the old men, and ready to receive, at the hand of the poet, a new telling of the old tale.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
It is an inevitable defect, that bureaucrats will care more for routine than for results.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Probably we pursue an insoluble problem in seeking a suitable education for a morbidly melancholy mind.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Shakespeare was too wise not to know that for most of the purposes of human life stupidity is a most valuable element. He had nothing of the impatience which sharp logical narrow minds habitually feel when they come across those who do not apprehend their quick and precise deductions. No doubt he talked to the stupid players, to the stupid doorkeeper, to the property man, who considers paste jewels "very preferable, besides the expense "—talked with the stupid apprentices of stupid Fleet Street, and had much pleasure in ascertaining what was their notion of " King Lear".
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The world knows what you seem; it does not know what you are.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution