Quote

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.

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
Fear
Requires
Maintained
Political
Vote
Votes
May
Soon
Assembly
Men
Mass
Efficiency
Principles
Attachment
Particular
Solid
Politics
Represent
Deferential
Belief
Steady
Collected

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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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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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A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
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It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
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The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
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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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Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
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The characteristic merit of the English constitutions is, that its dignified parts are very complicated and somewhat imposing, very old and rather venerable, while its efficient part, at least when in great and critical action, is decidedly simple and modern.
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The best security for people's doing their duty is that they should not know anything else to do.
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The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.
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The great pleasure of life is doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.
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The cardinal maxim is, that any aid to a present bad Bank is the surest mode of preventing the establishment of a future good Bank.
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A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.
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Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
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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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The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
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Money is economic power.
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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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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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