Quote

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

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
Doe
Benevolence
Human
Melancholy
Humans
Reflection
Whole
Harm
Good
Mankind
Perhaps
Question
Whether
Reflections

More quotes by Walter Bagehot

Image
Women--one half the human race at least--care fifty times more for a marriage than a ministry.
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
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
Image
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
Walter Bagehot
Image
Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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
Image
Most men of business think Anyhow this system will probably last my time. It has gone on a long time, and is likely to go on still.
Walter Bagehot
Image
It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition'.
Walter Bagehot
Image
Throughout the greater part of his life George III was a kind of 'consecrated obstruction'.
Walter Bagehot
Image
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
Walter Bagehot
Image
Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.
Walter Bagehot
Image
A political country is like an American forest you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.
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
Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
Walter Bagehot
Image
Capital must be propelled by self-interest it cannot be enticed by benevolence.
Walter Bagehot
Image
We think of Euclid as of fine ice we admire Newton as we admire the peak of Teneriffe. Even the intensest labors, the most remote triumphs of the abstract intellect, seem to carry us into a region different from our own-to be in a terra incognita of pure reasoning, to cast a chill on human glory.
Walter Bagehot
Image
The great pleasure of life is doing for pleasure things I do not like to do.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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.
Walter Bagehot
Image
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
Image
The caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged.
Walter Bagehot