Walter Bagehot: “Perfection in legislation is not to be looked for, and is not, indeed, much wanted in a rude, painful, confined life.”

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.

Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.

I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.

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