Walter Bagehot

“Business is really more agreeable than pleasure; it interests the whole mind . . . more deeply. But it does not look as if it did.”

“The real essence of work is concentrated energy.”

“The habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in other people's minds.”

“To a great experience one thing is essential - an experiencing nature.”

“The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

“Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.”

“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”

“The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.”

“The cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it.”

“A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it.”

“Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell.”

“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”

“An inability to stay quiet is one of the conspicuous failings of mankind.”

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

“We must not let daylight in upon the magic.”

“Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.”

“No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.”

“An element of exaggeration clings to the popular judgment: great vices are made greater, great virtues greater also; interesting incidents are made more interesting, softer legends more soft...”

“A slight daily unconscious luxury is hardly ever wanting to the dwellers in civilization; like the gentle air of a genial climate, it is a perpetual minute enjoyment.”

“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”