161 Quotes by Walter Bagehot

The real essence of work is concentrated energy.

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

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.

I'm not the kind of writer who's able to block out the world around me. I'm mindful of our own haves and have-nots, how our culture often blames and punishes the have-nots. I worry about our precarious economic and political climate.

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

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

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.

The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards

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