15 Walter Bagehot Quotes on Politics

Walter Bagehot quotes on politics

1. A political country is like an American forest; you have only to cut down the old trees, and immediately new trees come up to replace them.

2. But the mass of the old electors did not analyse very much: they liked to have one of their 'betters' to represent them; if he was rich they respected him much; and if he was a lord, they liked him the better. The issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose? And each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose notions were the notions of the rich - whose plans were their plans. The electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the schemes of one or two wealthy associations.

4. Under a cabinet constitution at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion. It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion. The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not required - are impediments - in common times. A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday politics than a Chatham - a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon. By the structure of the world we want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman - to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm.

5. A cabinet is a combining committee, - a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state. In its origin it belongs to the one, in its functions it belongs to the other.

9. The caucus is a sort of representative meeting which sits voting and voting till they have cut out all the known men against whom much is to be said, and agreed on some unknown man against whom there is nothing known, and therefore nothing to be alleged.

10. Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.

22. A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.

26. A Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle people.

29. 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.

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

34. An influential member of parliament has not only to pay much money to become such, and to give time and labour, he has also to sacrifice his mind too - at least all the characteristics part of it that which is original and most his own.

36. Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

38. In every particular state of the world, those nations which are strongest tend to prevail over the others; and in certain marked peculiarities the strongest tend to be the best.

42. No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

47. The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.