Bagehot, Walter

"Poverty is an anomaly to rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner do not ring the bell."

"It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations."

"You may talk of the tyranny of Nero and Tiberius; but the real tyranny is the tyranny of your next-door neighbour." - in National Review

"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea." - Physics and Politics