Walter Bagehot

A pompous man easily sweeps away the suggestions of those beneath him.

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.

A constitutional sovereign must in the common course of government be a man of but common ability.

But the Queen has no such veto; She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her.

The masses of Englishmen are not fit for an elective government.

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. It is often said that men are ruled by their …

Cabinet governments educate the nation; the presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it.

A cabinet is a combining committee,—a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other.

No orator ever made an impression by appealing to men as to their plainest physical wants, except when he could allege that those wants were caused by some one’s tyranny. But thousands have made the greatest impression by appealing to some …

An ancient and ever-altering constitution is like an old man who still wears with attached fondness clothes in the fashion of his youth: what you see of him is the same; what you do not see is wholly altered.

The issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose?

A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.

A new Constitution does not produce its full effect as long as all its subjects were reared under an old Constitution, as long as its statesmen were trained by that old Constitution. It is not really tested till it comes to be worked by …

The masses are infinitely too ignorant to make much of governing themselves.

... Satan is made interesting. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and even heterodox writers against Milton.

Whatever may be the defects of Gibbon's history, none can deny him a proud precision and a style in marching order.

The worst families are those in which the members never really speak their minds to one another; they maintain an atmosphere of unreality, and everyone always lives in an atmosphere of suppressed ill-feeling.

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 neighbor, as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is …

The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people who can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the …

The characteristic danger of great nations like the Romans or the English, which have a long history of continuous creation, is, that they may at last fail from not comprehending the great institutions which they have created.