4 Walter Bagehot Quotes on Behavior

Walter Bagehot quotes on behavior

13. All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that 'delays are dangerous,' and that the sluggish man - the man 'who roasteth not that which he took in hunting' - will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

40. Men who do not make advances to women are apt to become victims to women who make advances to them.

48. The greatest mistake is trying to be more agreeable than you can be.

51. 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.