Quote #41

Much has been written about panics and manias, much more than with the most outstretched intellect we are able to follow or conceive; but one thing is certain, that at particular times a great deal of stupid people have a great deal of stupid money.

More from Walter Bagehot

  1. Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.
  2. No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.
  3. 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 imaginat…
  4. Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Tru…
  5. In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarit…
  6. Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.
  7. History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and …
  8. So long as war is the main business of nations, temporary despotism - despotism during the campaign - is indispensable.

All Walter Bagehot quotes