Walter Bagehot: “You can use the best classes of the respectful country; you can only…”

On the record

You can use the best classes of the respectful country; you can only use the worst where every man thinks he is as good as every other.

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Walter Bagehot

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Bagehot argues that the best classes in a respectful society are more effective than the worst in an egalitarian one.

More from Walter Bagehot

Perhaps such powers as these are what a wise man would most seek to exercise and least fear to possess.

He could have found the truth as a statesman just as he found it when a judge; but he never did find it.

Nothing promotes intellect like intellectual discussion, and nothing promotes intellectual discussion so much as government by discussion.

The whole history of civilisation, is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.

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Walter Bagehot: “You can use the best classes of the respectful country; you can only use the worst where every man thinks he is as good…”