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One cannot make men good by Act of Parliament.

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
Parliament
Cannot
Make
Good
Men

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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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Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.
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Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.
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A slight daily unconscious luxury is hardly ever wanting to the dwellers in civilization like the gentle air of a genial climate, it is a perpetual minute enjoyment.
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A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
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If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.
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Credit means that a certain confidence is given, and a certain trust reposed. Is that trust justified? And is that confidence wise? These are the cardinal questions. To put it more simply credit is a set of promises to pay will those promises be kept?
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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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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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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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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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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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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.
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So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
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Business is really more agreeable than pleasure it interests the whole mind, the aggregate nature of man more continuously, and more deeply. But it does not look as if it did.
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An ambassador is not simply an agent he is also a spectacle.
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Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone: but what we have requires no proof.
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Persecution in intellectual countries produces a superficial conformity, but also underneath an intense, incessant, implacable doubt.
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Capital must be propelled by self-interest it cannot be enticed by benevolence.
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Nations touch at their summits.
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