On the record
The common peasantry will listen to his nonsense more submissively than to the new man's sense.
Said by
Walter Bagehot
Source
gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “The common peasantry will listen to his nonsense more submissively than to the new man's sense.”
Editor's note · Context
He points out that the common people are more likely to accept the opinions of those with established status over those who are newly wealthy.
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More from Walter Bagehot
Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.
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.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
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