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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

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
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Characteristic
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Creation
Continuous
Nations
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Romans

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No man has come so near our definition of a constitutional statesman - the powers of a first-rate man and the creed of a second-rate man.
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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.
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The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards
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Stupidity is nature's favorite resource for preserving consistency of opinion.
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Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.
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Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality it tends to over-government in point of quantity.
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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 reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
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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.
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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.
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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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Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
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In the faculty of writing nonsense, stupidity is no match for genius.
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The peculiar essence of our banking system is an unprecedented trust between man and man. And when that trust is much weakened by hidden causes, a small accident may greatly hurt it, and a great accident for a moment may almost destroy it.
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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.
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The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
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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.
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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.
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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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No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
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