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. – Walter Bagehot
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards. – Walter Bagehot
History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it. – 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