All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that "delays are dangerous," and that the sluggish man — the man "who roasteth not that which he took in hunting" — will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.


Ch. 5 - Physics and Politics (1869)

Walter Bagehot Quotes

All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those...

All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those...

All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those...

All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those...