5 Walter Bagehot Quotes on Society

Walter Bagehot quotes on society

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.

19. The purse strings tie us to our kind.

23. You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbor... Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to think other men's thoughts, to speak other men's words, to follow other men's habits.

27. A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact, and, as such, it rivets mankind.

57. Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.