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 stupidity
In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius.
book writing people
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
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.
writing teeth grinder
Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
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.
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.
kind obstruction greater
Throughout the greater part of his life George III was a kind of 'consecrated obstruction'.