The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
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Quotes by Walter Bagehot
Explore 26 verified and sourced quotes attributed to Walter Bagehot. Open any quote for its dedicated page, source details and related topics.
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Selected quotes by Walter Bagehot
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Life is a school of probability.
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.
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
A slight daily unconscious luxury is hardly ever wanting to the dwellers in civilization; like the gentle air of a genial climate, it is a perpetual minute enjoyment.
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
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.
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.
The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.
A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.
Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
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