Walter Bagehot Quotes

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

When the imagination and will power are in conflict, are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, without any exception.

I think a really rich world to live in is where you're thinking in terms of human behavior and human types and not being super literal. In order to see the deeper truth, you need to break out of literal frame of mind.

Man lives by imagination.

Imagination tends to be truly useful if accompanied by the power of mental control - if the worlds in one's head can be purposefully manipulated and distinguished from the real one outside it.

I have a very vivid imagination.

Man is an imagining being.

People seem to have trouble with the imagination. They can't believe that you can just pull things out of your brain like that.

Men simply copied the realities of their hearts when they built prisons.

Human beings are creators, flinging powerful images into the minds of their fellow men. And all of these images are built of tiny particles of thought.

Men are very much to be pitied in that they are to be governed by a king who is but a man like them; for it would require Gods to reform men. But kings are not less to be pitied, since being but men, that are weak and imperfect, they are to govern this innumerable multitude of corrupt and deceitful men.

Thank God for my imagination. For my abilities to mimic.

People cannot do what they cannot think, and they cannot think what they cannot say.

The limits of thought are not so much set from outside, by the fullness or poverty of experiences that meet the mind, as from within, by the power of conception, the wealth of formulative notions with which the mind meets experiences.

To step aside is human.

The more one analyses people, the more all reasons for analysis disappear. Sooner or later one comes to that dreadful universal thing called human nature.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

I don't want to be quoted as 'Tom Hiddleston, psychologist says...' But there is a psychological aspect to being an actor. We are particular students of human nature - not every actor is, of course, but that's what fascinates me about being an actor.

All I'm saying is that to liberate the potential of your mind, body and soul, you must first expand your imagination. You see, things are always created twice: first in the workshop of the mind and then, and only then, in reality. I call this process 'blueprinting' because anything you create in your outer world began as a simple blueprint in your inner world.

Visualization. It may be the most important part of your mental package.

As stupid and vicious as men are, this is a lovely day.

Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.

The best movies are made from a point of view of an understanding of human nature and an understanding of history and an understanding of what motivates people, of what makes a good movie from an emotional place.

Trouble shots are surprisingly easy if you activate your imagination. You simply must be able to imagine exactly what flight the ball will take before you can play any shot well.

It seems that the analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. And literature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning names.