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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

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Walter Bagehot
Age: 51 †
Born: 1826
Born: February 3
Died: 1877
Died: March 24
Businessperson
Economist
Engineer
Journalist
Political Scientist
Politician
Sociologist
Langport
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Sign
Good
Tests
Matters
Particular
Parliamentary
Politics
Dullness
Success
Indication
Political
Excellence
Government
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The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English which have a long history of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created
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A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
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One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.
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No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
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The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.
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No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman - the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.
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We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
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The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
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We think of Euclid as of fine ice we admire Newton as we admire the peak of Teneriffe. Even the intensest labors, the most remote triumphs of the abstract intellect, seem to carry us into a region different from our own-to be in a terra incognita of pure reasoning, to cast a chill on human glory.
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Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
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Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality it tends to over-government in point of quantity.
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Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
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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.
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A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
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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.
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You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
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One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea. It...makes you think that after all, your favorite notions may be wrong, your firmest beliefs ill-founded....Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill-treat the original man who brings it.
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When great questions end, little parties begin.
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No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
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The maxim of science is simply that of common sense-simple cases first begin with seeing how the main force acts when there is as little as possible to impede it, and when you thoroughly comprehend that, add to it in succession the separate effects of each of the incumbering and interfering agencies.
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