Walter Bagehot

It belongs to the idea of progress that beginnings can never seem attractive to those who live far on; the price of improvement is, that the unimproved will always look degraded.

The idea of an indestructible nation is a modern idea; in early ages all nations were destructible, and the further we go back, the more incessant was the work of destruction.

Nation-CHANGING comes afterwards, and is mostly effected by peaceful revolution, though even then war, too, plays its part.

We are dealing with early ages; nation-MAKING is the occupation of man in these ages, and it is war that makes nations.

Such is no doubt one cause why Monotheism tends to prevail over Polytheism; it produces a higher, steadier character, calmed and concentrated by a great single object; it is not confused by competing rites, or distracted by miscellaneous…

Strong beliefs win strong men, and then make them stronger.

Thus Epicureanism never prospered at Rome, but Stoicism did; the stiff, serious character of the great prevailing nation was attracted by what seemed a confirming creed, and deterred by what looked like a relaxing creed.

Those kinds of morals and that kind of religion which tend to make the firmest and most effectual character are sure to prevail, all else being the same; and creeds or systems that conduce to a soft limp mind tend to perish, except some…

Before his time people laughed at Cromwell's saying, 'Trust in God, and keep your powder dry.' But we now know that the trust was of as much use as the powder, if not of more.

Carlyle has taught the present generation many lessons, and one of these is that 'God-fearing' armies are the best armies.

There is a want of sanity in their manner which throws a suspicion on their substance (though it is often profound); and he brandishes one or two fallacies, of which he has himself a high notion, but which plain people will always detect…

In spite of his great genius, after a long life of writing, it is a question still whether even a single work of his can take a lasting place in high literature.

Conquest is the missionary of valour, and the hard impact of military virtues beats meanness out of the world.

And the success of the nations which possess these martial virtues has been the great means by which their continuance has been secured in the world, and the destruction of the opposite vices insured also.

Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.

War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valour, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline.

Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.

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

This is the slavery which has made the name revolting to the best minds, and has nearly rooted the thing out of the best of the world.

But wholesale slavery, where men are but one of the investments of large capital, and where a great owner, so far from knowing each slave, can hardly tell how many gangs of them he works, is an abominable state.

When other sources of leisure become possible, the one use of slavery is past.

No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.

But originality in war does, and slave-owning nations, having time to think, are likely to be more shrewd in policy, and more crafty in strategy.

The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could not have had the steady calm which marks them, if they had themselves been teased and hurried about their flocks and herds.

The sort of originality which slavery gives is of the first practical advantage in early communities; and the repose it gives is a great artistic advantage when they come to be described in history.