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The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
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
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Belief
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Agreeable
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More quotes by Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.
Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot
The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.
Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.
Walter Bagehot
An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.
Walter Bagehot
I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our culture often blames and punishes the have-nots. I worry about our precarious economic and political climate.
Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.
Walter Bagehot
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
Walter Bagehot
We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
Walter Bagehot
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
Adventure is the life of commerce, but caution is the life of banking.
Walter Bagehot
The business of banking ought to be simple. If it is hard it is wrong. The only securities which a banker, using money that he may be asked at short notice to repay, ought to touch, are those which are easily saleable and easily intelligible.
Walter Bagehot
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
Walter Bagehot
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Walter Bagehot
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.
Walter Bagehot
