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
heart intellect intelligence-and-intellectuals martyr soul truth
He believes, with all his heart and soul and strength, that there is such a thing as truth; he has the soul of a martyr with the intellect of an advocate.
religious intellectual moral
A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature a good bit, of course, but a bit only in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence.
men intellectual would-be
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.
country doubt intellectual
Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
great king monarchy rights sovereign three
The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights -- the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.
beats conquest english-author hard impact meanness military virtues
Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
fear long judgement
So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.
actions beginning bond civilization condition impose intense legality marked men settled tendency ties
The beginning of civilization is marked by an intense legality; that legality is the very condition of its existence, the bond which ties it together; but that legality - that tendency to impose a settled customary yoke upon all men and all actions -
real essence energy
The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
english-author few good people written
The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.
cannot english-author great life people
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
care inevitable routine
It is an inevitable defect, that bureaucrats will care more for routine than for results.
kind obstruction greater
Throughout the greater part of his life George III was a kind of 'consecrated obstruction'.
military war race
War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.