English economist and political analyst (1826-1877)
Behind every man's external life, which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbour, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark half, which is unknown to us.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
A deferential community, even though its lowest classes are not intelligent, is far more suited to a Cabinet government than any kind of democratic country, because it is more suited to political excellence. The highest classes can rule in it; and the highest classes must, as such, have more political ability than the lower classes. A life of labour, an incomplete education, a monotonous occupation, a career in which the hands are used much and the judgment is used little, cannot create as much flexible thought, as much applicable intelligence, as a life of leisure, a long culture, a varied experience, an existence by which the judgment is incessantly exercised, and by which it may be incessantly improved. A country of respectful poor, though far less happy than where there are no poor to be respectful, is nevertheless far more fitted for the best government. You can use the best classes of the respectful country; you can only use the worst where every man thinks he is as good as every other.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Everything changes; the old world—-the classical civilization of form and definition—passes away, a new world of free spirit and inward growth emerges; between the two lies a mixed weltering interval of trouble and confusion.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The most palpable facts, are exactly the contrary to what we should expect.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
The sort of taxation tried in America, that of taxing everything, and seeing what every thing would yield, could not have been tried under a Government delicately and quickly sensitive to public opinion.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
In the course of a long reign a sagacious king would acquire an experience with which few Ministers could contend.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
You have not a perception of the first elements in this matter till you know that government by a CLUB is a standing wonder.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Most poets must be prohibited; the exercise of the fancy requires watching.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
There is as much variety of pluck in writing across a sheet, as in riding across a country.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
A democracy will never, save after an awful catastrophe, return what has once been conceded to it, for to do so would be to admit an inferiority in itself, of which, except by some almost unbearable misfortune, it could never be convinced.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
If, therefore, a nation is able to gain the benefit of custom without the evil—if after ages of waiting it can have order and choice together—at once the fatal clog is removed, and the ordinary springs of progress, as in a modern community we conceive them, begin their elastic action.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
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 economised by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The idea that the head of the Government is the head of society is so fixed in the ideas of mankind that only a few philosophers regard it as historical and accidental, though when the matter is examined, that conclusion is certain and even obvious.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Society is too correct and dull to be an occupation.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The soul "itself by itself," could tell all it wanted if it would be true to its sublimer isolation.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
English history has been in substance the same, though its form is different, and its growth far slower and longer. The scale was larger, and the elements more various. A Greek city soon got rid of its kings, for the political sacredness of the monarch would not bear the daily inspection and constant criticism of an eager and talking multitude. Everywhere in Greece the slave population—the most ignorant, and therefore the most unsusceptible of intellectual influences—was struck out of the account. But England began as a kingdom of considerable size, inhabited by distinct races, none of them fit for prosaic criticism, and all subject to the superstition of royalty. In early England, too, royalty was much more than a superstition. A very strong executive was needed to keep down a divided, an armed, and an impatient country; and therefore the problem of political development was delicate. A formed free government in a homogeneous nation may have a strong executive; but during the transition state, while the republic is in course of development and the monarchy in course of decay, the executive is of necessity weak. The polity is divided, and its action feeble and failing. The different orders of English people have progressed, too, at different rates. The change in the state of the higher classes since the Middle Ages is enormous, and it is all improvement; but the lower have varied little, and many argue that in some important respects they have got worse, even if in others they have got better. The development of the English Constitution was of necessity slow, because a quick one would have destroyed the executive and killed the State, and because the most numerous classes, who changed very little, were not prepared for any catastrophic change in our institutions.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
The purse strings tie us to our kind.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
The primitive man could not have imagined what we mean by a nation. We on the other hand cannot imagine those to whom it is a difficulty; 'we know what it is when you do not ask us,' but we cannot very quickly explain or define it. But so much as this is plain, a nation means a LIKE body of men, because of that likeness capable of acting together, and because of that likeness inclined to obey similar rules; and even this Homer's Cyclops—used only to sparse human beings—could not have conceived.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
In the East, in a word, we are attempting to put new wine into old bottles-to pour what we can of a civilization whose spirit is progress into the form of a civilization whose spirit is fixity, and whether we shall succeed or not is perhaps the most interesting question in an age abounding almost beyond example in questions of political interest.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Physics and Politics
Treaties are quite as important as most laws, and to require the elaborate assent of representative assemblies to every word of the law, and not to consult them even as to the essence of the treaty, is prima facie ludicrous.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution