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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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Walter Bagehot
Age: 51 †
Born: 1826
Born: February 3
Died: 1877
Died: March 24
Businessperson
Economist
Engineer
Journalist
Political Scientist
Politician
Sociologist
Langport
Somerset
Strong
Royalty
Political
Monarchy
Government
Hardly
Best
Anywhere
Reason
Mass
World
Mankind
Politics
Intelligible
Understand
Monarchs

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The maxim of science is simply that of common sense-simple cases first begin with seeing how the main force acts when there is as little as possible to impede it, and when you thoroughly comprehend that, add to it in succession the separate effects of each of the incumbering and interfering agencies.
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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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Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
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It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
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History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world have a chance for it.
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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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The characteristic danger of great nations, like the Romans or the English which have a long history of continuous creation, is that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created
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Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.
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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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No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
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We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
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A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
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What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
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When great questions end, little parties begin.
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Money is economic power.
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Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking.
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A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
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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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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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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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