Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Walter Bagehot (English Economist, Journalist)

Walter Bagehot (1826–77) was an English economist, political analyst, and journalist. He was one of the most influential journalists of the mid-Victorian period. As editor of the National Review since 1855, he strongly influenced political thinking and developments in social science. Later on, he served as editor of The Economist 1860–77.

Born in Langport, Somerset, Bagehot graduated in mathematics at University College London and was called to the Bar in 1852. After a spell as a banker in his father’s firm, he succeeded his father-in-law James Wilson as editor of The Economist in 1860.

Bagehot’s economic and political philosophies are shown in such best-known treatise as English Constitution (1867,) Thomas Hill Green (1836–82.) He applied the theory of evolution to politics and wrote Physics and Politics (1872.)

Bagehot advocated many constitutional reforms, including the introduction of life peers. His other notable works include Lombard Street (1875,) Literary Studies (1879,) and Economic Studies (1880.)

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Walter Bagehot

When great questions end, little parties begin.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Politics

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
Topics: Opinions

An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Silence

The most essential mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive, permanent, and on a large scale, is much stupidity.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Liberty

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks after them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendor of those who eclipsed and preceded them.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Politics

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Kings, Royalty, Queens

History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it.
—Walter Bagehot

So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience that it is wrong.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Opinions

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
—Walter Bagehot

The cure for admiring the house of lords is to go and look at it.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Observation

A man’s mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Wife

A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Politicians, Politics

The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Focus, Concentration

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
Topics: Queens, Royalty, Kings

The best security for people’s doing their duty is that they should not know anything else to do.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Duty

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
Topics: Presidency

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
Topics: Nation, Nations, Nationality, Nationalism

A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality. The truth is, that a skilled bureaucracy is, though it boasts of an appearance of science, quite inconsistent with the true principles of the art of business.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Bureaucracy

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Challenges, Obstacles, Strength, Pleasure, Doing Your Best

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
Topics: Wealth, The Poor, Poverty

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
Topics: Exaggeration

A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Weddings, Marriage

So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism—despotism during the campaign—is indispensable.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Tyranny

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men’s thoughts, to speak other men’s words, to follow other men’s habits.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Public opinion, Opinion

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.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Enjoyment, Wealth, Luxury

Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.
—Walter Bagehot

Life is a school of probability.
—Walter Bagehot

It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Vice

An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Diplomacy

What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
—Walter Bagehot
Topics: Mind, The Mind

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