Political Quotes

Walter Bagehot: “His power rests too much on human reason, and too little on human instinct.”

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His power rests too much on human reason, and too little on human instinct.
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Walter Bagehot

Editor's note · Context

Bagehot critiques the reliance on rationality in governance, emphasizing the importance of instinct.

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More from Walter Bagehot

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

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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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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.

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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.

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