Political Quotes

Walter Bagehot: “If you want to stop instant and immediate action, always make it a condition that the action shall not begin till a…”

On the record
If you want to stop instant and immediate action, always make it a condition that the action shall not begin till a considerable number of persons have talked over it, and have agreed on it.
Said by
Walter Bagehot

Editor's note · Context

Bagehot discusses the impact of discussion on decision-making processes in governance.

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More from Walter Bagehot

I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.

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Political philosophy is still more imperfect; it has been framed from observations taken upon regular specimens of politics and States; as to these its teaching is most valuable.

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The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.

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These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

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