Quotes from bagehot walter ix

What writers are expected to write, they write; or else they do not write at all.

Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.

In old times, letters were written for people who knew nothing and required to be told everything. Now they are written for people who know everything except the one thing which the letter is designed to explain to them. It is impossible in some respects not to regret the old practice. It is well that each age should write for itself a faithful account of its habitual existence.

A man of business hates elaborate trifling. "If you do not believe your own senses," he will say, "there is no use in my talking to you." As to the multiplicity of arguments and the complexity of questions, he feels them little. He has a plain, simple, as he would say, practical way of looking at the matter; and you will never make him comprehend any other.

As the slap-dash sentences of a rushing critic express the hasty impatience of modern manners; so the deliberate emphasis, the slow acumen, the steady argument, the impressive narration bring before us what is now a tradition, the picture of the correct eighteenth-century gentleman, who never failed in a measured politeness, partly because it was due in propriety towards others, and partly because from his own dignity it was due most obviously to himself.

The old pagan has a sympathy with the religion of enthusiasm far above the reach of the modern Epicurean.

A perfectly poetic appreciation of nature contains two elements, a knowledge of facts, and a sensibility to charms. Everybody who may have to speak to some naturalists will be well aware how widely the two may be separated. He will have seen that a man may study butterflies and forget that they are beautiful, or be perfect in the " Lunar theory" without knowing what most people mean by the moon.

With civilization too comes another change: men wish not only to tell what they have seen, but also to express what they are conscious of. Barbarians feel only hunger, and that is not lyrical; but as time runs on, arise gentler emotions and finer moods and more delicate desires which need expression, and require from the artist's fancy the lightest touches and the most soothing and insinuating words.

If you will describe the people,—nay, if you will write for the people, you must be one of the people.

It was good that there should be a more diffused knowledge of the material world; and it was good, therefore, that there should be partisans of matter, believers in particles, zealots for tissue, who were ready to incur any odium and any labour that a few more men might learn a few more things.

Nations touch at their summits.

A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people. In proportion as you give it power it will inquire into everything, settle everything, meddle in everything.

The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries--the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning--without ever being bound to look at anything.

Nobody cares for a debate in Congress which "comes to nothing," and no one reads long articles which have no influence on events.