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Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

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
Interesting
Monarchs
Action
Concentrated
Royalty
Government
Monarchy
Persons
Actions
Person
Nation
Nations
Attention

More quotes by Walter Bagehot

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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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If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.
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The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
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It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition' that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government.
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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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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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One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.
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When great questions end, little parties begin.
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An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
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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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The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.
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So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.
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Credit means that a certain confidence is given, and a certain trust reposed. Is that trust justified? And is that confidence wise? These are the cardinal questions. To put it more simply credit is a set of promises to pay will those promises be kept?
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Nations touch at their summits.
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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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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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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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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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The purse strings tie us to our kind.
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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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