English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
Before history began there must have been in the nation which writes it much progress; else there could have been no history. It is a great advance in civilisation to be able to describe the common facts of life, and perhaps, if we were to examine it, we should find that it was at least an equal advance to wish to describe them.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
He grew first to wish to become mad, next to believe that he should become so, and only to be afraid that the expected delirium might not come on soon enough to prevent his appearance for examination before the Lords--a fear, the bare existence of which shows how slight a barrier remained between him and the insanity which he fancied that he longed for.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
There is, as yet, no Act of Parliament compelling a bona fide traveler to read. If you wish him to read, you must make reading pleasant. You must give him short views, and clear sentences.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
A great deal of excellent research has been spent on the difference between "humor" and "wit," into which metaphysical problem " our limits," of course, forbid us to enter. There is, however, between them, the distinction of dry sticks and green sticks; there is in humor a living energy, a diffused potency, a noble sap; it grows upon the character of the humorist.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
There can be no question that the polity of the Church, and the zeal of the converts, and other such things, did most materially conduce to the progress of the Gospel. But few will now attribute to these much of the effect. The real cause is the heaving of the mind after the truth. Troubled with the perplexities of time, weary with the vexation of ages, the spiritual faculty of man turns to the truth as the child turns to its mother.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The English people do not easily change their rooted notions, but they have many unrooted notions.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
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
If we leave literary theory, and look to our actual old law, it is wonderful how much the sovereign can do. A few years ago the Queen very wisely attempted to make life peers, and the House of Lords very unwisely, and contrary to its own best interests, refused to admit her claim. They said her power had decayed into non-existence; she once had it, they allowed, but it had ceased by long disuse. If any one will run over the pages of Comyn's Digest or any other such book, title "Prerogative," he will find the Queen has a hundred such powers which waver between reality and desuetude, and which would cause a protracted and very interesting legal argument if she tried to exercise them. Some good lawyer ought to write a careful book to say which of these powers are really usable, and which are obsolete. There is no authentic explicit information as to what the Queen can do, any more than of what she does.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
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
In reverencing wealth we reverence not a man, but an appendix to a man.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
On the whole, I think it indisputable that the selecting task of Parliament is performed as well as public opinion wishes it to be performed; and if we want to improve that standard, we must first improve the English nation, which imposes that standard. Of the substantial part of its legislative task, the same, too, may, I think, be said. The manner of our legislation is indeed detestable, and the machinery for settling that manner odious. A committee of the whole House, dealing, or attempting to deal with the elaborate clauses of a long bill, is a wretched specimen of severe but misplaced labour. It is sure to wedge some clause into the Act, such as that which the judge said "seemed to have fallen by itself, PERHAPS, from heaven, into the mind of the legislature," so little had it to do with anything on either side or around it. At such times government by a public meeting displays its inherent defects, and is little restrained by its necessary checks. But the essence of our legislature may be separated from its accidents. Subject to two considerable defects I think Parliament passes laws as the nation wishes to have them passed.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Since war has ceased to be the moving force in the world, men have become more tender one to another, and shrink from what they used to inflict without caring; and this is not so much because men are improved (which may or may not be in various cases), but because they have no longer the daily habit of war--have no longer formed their notions upon war, and therefore are guided by thoughts and feelings which soldiers as such--soldiers educated simply by their trade--are too hard to understand.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
the academies are asylums of the ideas and the tastes of the last age.
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
The simple round of daily pleasures and genial employments which give instinctive happiness to the happiest natures, and best cheer the common life of common men, was studiously watched and scrutinized with the energy of a Puritan and the watchfulness of an inquisitor.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
A man of business hates elaborate trifling. "If you do not believe your own senses," he will say, "there is no use in my talking to you." As to the multiplicity of arguments and the complexity of questions, he feels them little. He has a plain, simple, as he would say, practical way of looking at the matter; and you will never make him comprehend any other.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The man of the modern world is used to speak what the modern world will hear; the writer of the modern world must write what that world will indulgently and pleasantly peruse.
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
The defects of bureaucracy are, indeed, well known. It is a form of Government which has been tried often enough in the world, and it is easy to show what, human nature being what it in the long run is, the defects of a bureaucracy must in the long run be.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution