It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations. – Walter Bagehot
It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. – 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
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