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The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

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
Book
Writing
Good
People
Books
Written
Write
Anything
Reason

More quotes by Walter Bagehot

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If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.
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Throughout the greater part of his life George III was a kind of 'consecrated obstruction'.
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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 Ethiop gods have Ethiop lips, Bronze cheeks, and woolly hair The Grecian gods are like the Greeks, As keen-eyed, cold and fair.
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Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.
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A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
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Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
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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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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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A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.
Walter Bagehot
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We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.
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Nations touch at their summits.
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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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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 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.
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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The less money lying idle the greater is the dividend.
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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.
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Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.
Walter Bagehot
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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.
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