The Wit of Bagehot on Human Nature

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 27, 2000

For the people has been a longtime admirer of Walter Bagehot (1826-77), the great English economist and essayist. The following are some of his always-practical and conservative thoughts taken from The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. And Bagehot could be witty, as these quotes show:

"It is an inevitable defect that bureaucrats will care more for routine than for results" and "No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist." Or how about this one: "One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."

And Bagehot could be a wise observer of human behavior: "The purchaser [of a newspaper] desires an article which he can appreciate at sight; which he can lay down and say, `An excellent article, very excellent; exactly my own sentiments.'"

Also: "To be commonly above others, still more to think yourself above others, is to be below them every now and then, and sometimes much below."

But this column's favorites are the following two, which deserve pondering and reflection: "The troth is that the propensity of man to imitate what is before him is one of the strongest parts of his nature." And: "The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm."