A schoolmaster should have an atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being himself.
Walter Bagehot
A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
Walter Bagehot
We must not let daylight in upon the magic.
Walter Bagehot
The most intellectual of men are moved quite as much by the circumstances which they are used to as by their own will. The active voluntary part of a man is very small, and if it were not economized by a sleepy kind of habit, its results would be null.
Walter Bagehot
The cure for admiring the house of lords is to go and look at it.
Walter Bagehot
A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.
Walter Bagehot
Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.
Walter Bagehot
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
Walter Bagehot
So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism -- despotism during the campaign -- is indispensable.
Walter Bagehot
It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.