Walter Bagehot - Government Quotes

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The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.

Walter Bagehot
A bureaucracy is sure to think that its duty is to augment official power, official business, or official members, rather than to leave free the energies of mankind; it overdoes the quantity of government, as well as impairs its quality.

Walter Bagehot
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.

Walter Bagehot
Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.

Walter Bagehot
It has been said that England invented the phrase, 'Her Majesty's Opposition'; that it was the first government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequence of cabinet government.

Walter Bagehot
Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

Walter Bagehot
Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns.

Walter Bagehot
Cabinet governments educate the nation; the presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it.

Walter Bagehot
Not only does a bureaucracy tend to under-government in point of quality; it tends to over-government in point of quantity.

Walter Bagehot