Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehot
Walter Bagehotwas a British journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, and literature...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth3 February 1826
book writing eye
The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that 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.
self interest benevolence
Capital must be propelled by self-interest; it cannot be enticed by benevolence.
people anomalies bells
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
men world wrecks
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.
music communication silence
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
war long campaigns
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
life courage war
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
strong heart government
Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.
real doors nero
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
real independent essence
The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms and habits and artifices by which less able and less active people are kept up to their labors.
writing teeth grinder
Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
meditation-and-yoga long calming
No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
age society human-nature
Civilized ages inherit the human nature which was victorious in barbarous ages, and that nature is, in many respects, not at all suited to civilized circumstances.
teacher fear teaching
A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.