“War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: War
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“Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Government
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“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.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Government
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“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.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: History
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“A family on the throne is an interesting idea. It brings down the pride of sovereignty to the level of petty life.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Family
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“Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Writing
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“A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Belief
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“An inability to stay quiet is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Silence
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“Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Progress
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“When great questions end, little parties begin.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Political
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“A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Political
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“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Pleasure
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“The cure for admiring the house of lords is to go and look at it.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Mind
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“Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Women
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“We must not let daylight in upon the magic.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: General
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“An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.”
Walter Bagehot
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Diplomacy
