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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.

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
Really
Six
Men
Whenever
Life
Meet
People
Present
Greatest
Pleasure
Two
Cannot
Sees

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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.
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Nine tenths of modern science is in this respect the same: it is the produce of men whom their contemporaries thought dreamers - who were laughed at for caring for what did not concern them - who, as the proverb went, 'walked into a well from looking at the stars' - who were believed to be useless, if anyone could be such.
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Capital must be propelled by self-interest it cannot be enticed by benevolence.
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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.
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A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
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The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.
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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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The less money lying idle the greater is the dividend.
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Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
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A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
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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.
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Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.
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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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An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.
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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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Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles that those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men - by the fear that if you vote against them, you may soon yourself have no vote at all.
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A political country is like an American forest you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.
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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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A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.
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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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