Quotes from Walter Bagehot

An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.

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.

What impresses men is not mind, but the result of mind.

We must not let daylight in upon the magic.

The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.

Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.

An inability to remain quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.

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.

Life is not a set campaign, but an irregular work, and the main forces in it are not overt resolutions, but latent and half-involuntary promptings.

An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft.

Conquest is the missionary of valor, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.

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