Walter Bagehot Quotes :
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
Walter Bagehot
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
Walter Bagehot
Woman absent is woman dead.
Walter Bagehot
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
Walter Bagehot
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
Walter Bagehot
The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.
Walter Bagehot
An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too – at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.
Walter Bagehot
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
Walter Bagehot
Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one – in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.
Walter Bagehot
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
Walter Bagehot
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot