Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other mens thoughts, to speak other mens words, to follow other mens habits. – Walter Bagehot
It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations. – 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
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