Walter Bagehot: “No Minister who respected the fundamental usages of political practice would attempt to read such a note.”

One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.

That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a Ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation's will well, bring matters to the nation's attention well.

Savages waste away before modern civilisation; they seem to have held their ground before the ancient.

I do not think I put this too high when I say that a most important if not the most important object of early legislation was the enforcement of LUCKY rites.