Walter Bagehot
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.Collection: Nature
The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.Collection: Government
A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.Collection: Family
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.Collection: History
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.Collection: Life
A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.Collection: Great
We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
Life is a school of probability.
An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
The real essence of work is concentrated energy.
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.
Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.
You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor.
Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.
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.
A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.
Nothing is more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind.
A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.
The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.
Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
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.
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.
What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
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.
The reason that there are so few good books written is that so few people who write know anything.
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
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.
Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
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.
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.
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.
Woman absent is woman dead.
Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.
A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.
Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.Collection: Life
Go ahead and do the impossible. It's worth the look on the faces of those who said you couldn't.Collection: Looks
If you have to prove you are worthy of credit, your credit is already gone.Collection: Motivational
A democratic despotism is like a theocracy: it assumes its own correctness.Collection: Freedom