The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most… - Walter Bagehot

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The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is they whom the spectators cheer. The real rulers are secreted in second-rate carriages; no one cares for them or asks about them, but they are obeyed implicitly and unconsciously by reason of the splendour of those who eclipsed and preceded them.

Walter Bagehot

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About Walter Bagehot

Walter Bagehot (February 3 1826 – March 24 1877) was an English businessman, essayist and journalist who wrote about literature, government and economics.

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Edmund Burke Benjamin Disraeli John Adams Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay Montesquieu

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If happily, by its intelligence and attractiveness, a cabinet can gain a hold upon the great middle part of Parliament, it will continue to exist notwithstanding the hatching of small plots and the machinations of mean factions.

A constitutional sovereign must in the common course of government be a man of but common ability. I am afraid, looking to the early acquired feebleness of hereditary dynasties, that we must expect him to be a man of inferior ability. Theory and experience both teach that the education of a prince can be but a poor education, and that a royal family will generally have less ability than other families.

Maternity," it has been said, "is a matter of fact, paternity is a matter of opinion."

The apparent rulers of the English nation are like the most imposing personages of a splendid procession: it is by them the mob are influenced; it is… - Walter Bagehot

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