Quote

Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence it has not the ballot-box before it its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.

Walter Bagehot

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Walter Bagehot
Age: 51 †
Born: 1826
Born: February 3
Died: 1877
Died: March 24
Businessperson
Economist
Engineer
Journalist
Political Scientist
Politician
Sociologist
Langport
Somerset
Moment
Except
Ballots
Moments
Nation
Despotism
Government
Return
Returns
Must
Influence
Presidential
Virtue
Boxes
Waiting
Instant
Nations
Till
Electing
Gone
Wait
Ballot

More quotes by Walter Bagehot

Image
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
Image
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
Walter Bagehot
Image
Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.
Walter Bagehot
Image
It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations.
Walter Bagehot
Image
The great pleasure of life is doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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.
Walter Bagehot
Image
In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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
Image
Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The real essence of work is concentrated energy - people who really have that in a superior degree by nature are independent of the forms and habits and artifices by which less able and less active people are kept up to their labors.
Walter Bagehot
Image
Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.
Walter Bagehot
Image
The less money lying idle the greater is the dividend.
Walter Bagehot
Image
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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
Image
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.
Walter Bagehot