The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.

— Walter Bagehot

Walter Bagehot Quotes

When great questions end, little parties begin.

— Walter Bagehot

A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.

— Walter Bagehot

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.

— Walter Bagehot

In my youth I hoped to do great things; now I shall be satisfied to get through without scandal.

— Walter Bagehot

History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world have a chance for it.

— Walter Bagehot

An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.

— Walter Bagehot

The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people’s minds.

— Walter Bagehot

A man’s mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.

— Walter Bagehot

Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.

— Walter Bagehot

Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity.

— Walter Bagehot

Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.

— Walter Bagehot

In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

— Walter Bagehot

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. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.

— Walter Bagehot

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

— Walter Bagehot

We must not let daylight in upon the magic.

— Walter Bagehot

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

— Walter Bagehot

The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.

— Walter Bagehot

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits.

— Walter Bagehot

The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.

— Walter Bagehot

The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.

— Walter Bagehot
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