Quotes from bagehot walter ii

A man who is always rushing into the street will become familiar with the street. One who is forever changing from subject to subject will not become painfully acquainted with any one, but he will know the outsides of them all, and the road from each to the other.

As yet the few rule by their hold, not over the reason of the multitude, but over their imaginations, and their habits; over their fancies as to distant things they do not know at all, over their customs as to near things which they know very well.

This may sound like nonsense, and yet it is true. There is around some men a kind of circle or halo of influences, and traits, and associations, by which they infallibly leave a distinct and uniform impression on all their contemporaries. It is very difficult, even for those who have the best opportunities, to analyze exactly what this impression consists in, or why it was made—but it is made.

A great deal of excellent research has been spent on the difference between "humor" and "wit," into which metaphysical problem " our limits," of course, forbid us to enter. There is, however, between them, the distinction of dry sticks and green sticks; there is in humor a living energy, a diffused potency, a noble sap; it grows upon the character of the humorist.

Since war has ceased to be the moving force in the world, men have become more tender one to another, and shrink from what they used to inflict without caring; and this is not so much because men are improved (which may or may not be in various cases), but because they have no longer the daily habit of war--have no longer formed their notions upon war, and therefore are guided by thoughts and feelings which soldiers as such--soldiers educated simply by their trade--are too hard to understand.

The positive tastes and tendencies of the English mind confine its training to ascertained learning and definite science.

There are no straight lines in Nature or Shakespeare.

In the most intellectual city of the ancient world, in its most intellectual age, Socrates, its most intellectual inhabitant, discouraged the study of physics because they engendered uncertainty, and did not augment human happiness. The kind of knowledge which is most connected with human progress now was that least connected with it then.

An indifferent Parliament may be much improved by the steadying effect of grave affairs; but a Parliament which has no such affairs must be intrinsically excellent, or it will fail utterly.

The man of the modern world is used to speak what the modern world will hear; the writer of the modern world must write what that world will indulgently and pleasantly peruse.

A despot must feel that he is the pivot of the State. The stress of his kingdom is upon him. As he is, so are his affairs.

The power of a government by discussion as an instrument of elevation plainly depends—other things being equal—on the greatness or littleness of the things to be discussed.

Most men mostly imitate what they see, and catch the tone of what they hear, and so a settled type—a persistent character—is formed.

When other sources of leisure become possible, the one use of slavery is past. But all its evils remain, and even grow worse.

The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.