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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

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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
Made
Popular
Clings
Judgment
Exaggeration
Elements
Incidents
Virtue
Legends
Greater
Virtues
Interesting
Soft
Also
Element
Great
Vices
Softer

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Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
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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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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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A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.
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In my youth I hoped to do great things now I shall be satisfied to get through without scandal.
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We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
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All people are most credulous when they are most happy.
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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.
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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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Life is a school of probability.
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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.
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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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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.
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Women--one half the human race at least--care fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry.
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One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.
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If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.
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The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
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The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.
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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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