Walter Bagehot Quotes & Sayings (Page 3)

“No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.”

“The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”

“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”

“A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.”

“An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.”

“The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.”

“The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.”

“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.”

“Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.”

“You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.”