English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
In many matters of business, perhaps in most, a continuity of mediocrity is better than a hotch-potch of excellences.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
There are no straight lines in Nature or Shakespeare.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
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. The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, "Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?" the inquiry comes out thus—"Will you be governed in a way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not understand?" The issue was put to the French people; they were asked, "Will you be governed by Louis Napoleon, or will you be governed by an assembly?" The French people said, "We will be governed by the one man we can imagine, and not by the many people we cannot imagine".
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
I do not of course mean that statesmen can choose with absolute freedom what topics they will deal with and what they will not. I am of course aware that they choose under stringent conditions. 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
The English Constitution
At an election the non-titled are much more powerful than the titled.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Of course there was always some reason (if we only could find it) which gave the prominence in each age to some particular winning literature. There always is some reason why the fashion of female dress is what it is. But just as in the case of dress we know that now-a-days the determining cause is very much of an accident, so in the case of literary fashion, the origin is a good deal of an accident. What the milliners of Paris, or the demi-monde of Paris, enjoin our English ladies, is (I suppose) a good deal chance; but as soon as it is decreed, those whom it suits and those whom it does not all wear it. The imitative propensity at once insures uniformity; and 'that horrid thing we wore last year' (as the phrase may go) is soon nowhere to be seen. Just so a literary fashion spreads, though I am far from saying with equal primitive unreasonableness—a literary taste always begins on some decent reason, but once started, it is propagated as a fashion in dress is propagated; even those who do not like it read it because it is there, and because nothing else is easily to be found.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
the academies are asylums of the ideas and the tastes of the last age.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing ... 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
Commerce brings this mingling of ideas, this breaking down of old creeds, and brings it inevitably.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
What writers are expected to write, they write; or else they do not write at all.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Nations touch at their summits.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
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
A weak mind yields a passive obedience to those among whom it is thrown.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
With civilization too comes another change: men wish not only to tell what they have seen, but also to express what they are conscious of. Barbarians feel only hunger, and that is not lyrical; but as time runs on, arise gentler emotions and finer moods and more delicate desires which need expression, and require from the artist's fancy the lightest touches and the most soothing and insinuating words.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
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
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 whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first and deadly afterwards.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics