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

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The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms and habits and artifices by which less able and less active people are kept up to their labors.
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When great questions end, little parties begin.
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Business is really more agreeable than pleasure it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply. But it does not look as if it did.
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It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
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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.
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The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
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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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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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Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.
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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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What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
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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.
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Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.
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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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Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
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What we opprobriously call stupidity, though not an enlivening quality in common society, is nature's favorite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion.
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The great pleasure of life is doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.
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Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence it has not the ballot-box before it its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.
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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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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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