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.

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

We must not let daylight in upon the magic.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

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

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.

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.

Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.

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.

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 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.

It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.

Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.

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

The real essence of work is concentrated energy.

Woman absent is woman dead.

An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.

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.

No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.

A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.

Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.

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.

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 greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.