„È bene non avere vizi, è male non avere tentazioni.“
— Walter Bagehot
da "Sir George Cornewall Lewis", in Biographical Studies
Frasi di Walter Bagehot
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Walter Bagehot
Data di nascita: 3. Febbraio 1826
Data di morte: 24. Marzo 1877
Pubblicità
Walter Bagehot è stato un giornalista britannico, che scrisse di politica, affari economici ed argomenti correlati.
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„Uno dei dolori più forti per la natura umana è causato dal dolore di una nuova idea.“
— Walter Bagehot
da Physics and Politics, Ch. 5, "The Age of Discussion"
Pubblicità
„The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.“
— Walter Bagehot
Context: I wish the art of benefiting men had kept pace with the art of destroying them; for though war has become slow, philanthropy has remained hasty. The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the, benevolence of mankind does most good or harm. Great good, no doubt, philanthropy does, but then it also does great evil. It augments so much vice, it multiplies so much suffering, it brings to life such great populations to suffer and to be vicious, that it is open to argument whether it be or be not an evil to the world, and this is entirely because excellent people fancy that they can do much by rapid action — that they will most benefit the world when they most relieve their own feelings; that as soon as an evil is seen "something" ought to be done to stay and prevent it.
Ch. 5
„The issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose?“
— Walter Bagehot
Context: But the mass of the old electors did not analyse very much: they liked to have one of their "betters" to represent them; if he was rich they respected him much; and if he was a lord, they liked him the better. The issue put before these electors was, which of two rich people will you choose? And each of those rich people was put forward by great parties whose notions were the notions of the rich—whose plans were their plans. The electors only selected one or two wealthy men to carry out the schemes of one or two wealthy associations.
Introduction, p. xiii
The "old electors" Bagehot refers to were the £10 borough householders enfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832.
„The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step.“
— Walter Bagehot
Context: The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.
Ch. 2, The Use of Conflict
Pubblicità
„The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything.“
— Walter Bagehot
Context: The reason why so few good books are written is, that so few people that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to see. His life is a vacuum.
Shakespeare
„A highly developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature, an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature, is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature — a good bit, of course, but a bit only — in disproportionate, unnatural and revolting prominence.“
— Walter Bagehot
Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning
Pubblicità
„... For ancient heroes the exhaustive method is possible: all that can be known of them is contained in a few short passages of Greek and Latin, and it is quite possible to say whatever can be said about every one of these; the result would not be unreasonably bulky, though it might be dull. But in the case of men who have lived in the thick of the crowded modern world, no such course is admissible; overmuch may be said, and we must choose what we will say. Biographers, however, are rarely bold enough to adopt the selective method consistently. They have, we suspect, the fear of the critics before their eyes.“
— Walter Bagehot
(quote from p. 151)
„Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.“
— Walter Bagehot
Where wealth and freedom reign, contentment fails,
And honor sinks, where commerce long prevails.
— Oliver Goldsmith, "The Traveller; or, a Prospect of Society'" http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/golds02.html (1764). This quote can be found on the Oliver Goldsmith page.
„One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.“
— Walter Bagehot
Ch. 5, The Age of Discussion
„The greatest enjoyment possible to man was that which this philosophy promises its votaries—the pleasure of being always right, and always reasoning—without ever being bound to look at anything.“
— Walter Bagehot
No. VII, Its Supposed Checks and Balances, p. 250
An unsourced quote attributed to Bagehot says: "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what other people say you cannot do."
