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The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards

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
Somerset
Institutions
Civilization
History
Strewn
Culture
Invaluable
Firsts
Reincarnation
First
Deadly
Whole
Afterwards
Creeds

More quotes by Walter Bagehot

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But of all nations in the world the English are perhaps the least a nation of pure philosophers.
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All people are most credulous when they are most happy.
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The essence of Toryism is enjoyment?but as far as communicating and establishing your creed are concernedtrya little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is, to enjoy old customs the way to be satisfied with the present state of things is, to enjoy that state of things.
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One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.
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The caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged.
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Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
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A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.
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Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
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I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our culture often blames and punishes the have-nots. I worry about our precarious economic and political climate.
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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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A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.
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When great questions end, little parties begin.
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One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
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The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.
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A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
Walter Bagehot
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An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
Walter Bagehot
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What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
Walter Bagehot
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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
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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
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In early times every sort of advantage tends to become a military advantage such is the best way, then, to keep it alive. But the Jewish advantage never did so beginning in religion, contrary to a thousand analogies, it remained religious.
Walter Bagehot