Walter Bagehot

It is they who, by a great speech or two, determine what shall be said and what shall be written for long after.

It is by that programme, by a comparison of the programmes of different statesmen, that the world forms its judgment.

The common ordinary mind is quite unfit to fix for itself what political question it shall attend to; it is as much as it can do to judge decently of the questions which drift down to it, and are brought before it; it almost never settles…

The future of this country depends on the happy working of a delicate experiment, and they will have done all they could to vitiate that experiment.

Just when it is desirable that ignorant men, new to politics, should have good issues, and only good issues, put before them, these statesmen will have suggested bad issues.

The wide gift of the elective franchise will be a great calamity to the whole nation, and to those who gain it as great a calamity as to any.

In excited states of the public mind they have scarcely a discretion at all; the tendency of the public perturbation determines what shall and what shall not be dealt with.

But, upon the other hand, in quiet times statesmen have great power; when there is no fire lighted, they can settle what fire shall be lit.

And as the new suffrage is happily to be tried in a quiet time, the responsibility of our statesmen is great because their power is great too.

It is for our principal statesmen to lead the public, and not to let the public lead them.

I do not mean that our statesmen should assume a pedantic and doctrinaire tone with the English people; if there is anything which English people thoroughly detest, it is that tone exactly.

A statesman who should show that gaucherie would exhibit a defect of imagination, and expose an incapacity for dealing with men which would be a great hindrance to him in his calling.

What is mostly needed is the manly utterance of clear conclusions; if a statesman gives these in a felicitous way (and if with a few light and humorous illustrations, so much the better), he has done his part.

A statesman ought to show his own nature, and talk in a palpable way what is to him important truth.

But if, especially at a time when great ignorance has an unusual power in public affairs, he chooses to accept and reiterate the decisions of that ignorance, he is only the hireling of the nation, and does little save hurt it.

Of all our political dangers, the greatest I conceive is that they will neglect the lesson.

I can conceive of nothing more corrupting or worse for a set of poor ignorant people than that two combinations of well-taught and rich men should constantly offer to defer to their decision, and compete for the office of executing it.

Vox populi will be Vox diaboli if it is worked in that manner.

No doubt the question cannot be easily discussed in the abstract; much must depend on the nature of the measures in each particular case; on the evil they would cause if conceded; on the attractiveness of their idea to the working classes…

So long as they are not taught to act together, there is a chance of this being averted, and it can only be averted by the greatest wisdom and the greatest foresight in the higher classes.

This advice, too, will be said to be obvious; but I have the greatest fear that, when the time comes, it will be cast aside as timid and cowardly.

So strong are the combative propensities of man that he would rather fight a losing battle than not fight at all.

The courage which strengthens an enemy and which so loses, not only the present battle, but many after battles, is a heavy curse to men and nations.

The aristocracy and the gentry lost their predominance in the House of Commons; that predominance passed to the middle class.

The middle class element has gained greatly by the second change, and the aristocratic element has lost greatly.