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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
Reason
Mass
World
Mankind
Politics
Intelligible
Understand
Monarchs
Strong
Royalty
Political
Monarchy
Government
Hardly
Best
Anywhere

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A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature a good bit, of course, but a bit only in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence.
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Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.
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The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.
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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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Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking.
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Throughout the greater part of his life George III was a kind of 'consecrated obstruction'.
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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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So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
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A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.
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In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius.
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Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.
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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 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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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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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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