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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.

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
Rather
Complicated
Dignified
Action
English
Imposing
Part
Critical
Characteristic
Great
Parts
Parliament
Constitution
Somewhat
Modern
Efficient
Decidedly
Least
Characteristics
Venerable
Simple
Merit
Constitutions

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A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
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Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.
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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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Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
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Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
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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.
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It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
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It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition'.
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An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
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We see but one aspect of our neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner, but each has a room to himself.
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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.
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One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
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The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent and on a large scale, is much stupidity.
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Poverty is an anomaly to rich people it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
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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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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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One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.
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No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
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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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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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