Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
Walter BagehotRead
The being without an opinion is so painful to human nature that most people will leap to a hasty opinion rather than undergo it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People often feel compelled to form opinions quickly, even if they are not well-considered, to avoid the discomfort of uncertainty.
This quote by Walter Bagehot highlights the discomfort that comes with indecision or lack of opinion, suggesting that human nature drives individuals to form opinions—even hasty or unfounded ones—to mitigate the pain of uncertainty. It speaks to the psychological need for certainty and the tendency to resolve ambiguity quickly, even at the cost of sound judgment.
Themes
OpinionUncertaintyHuman NaturePsychologyDecision Making
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about politics, someone might reference this quote to explain why people often adopt extreme positions without proper thought.
More from Walter Bagehot
All quotes →It is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
Walter BagehotRead
War both needs and generates certain virtues; not the highest, but what may be called the preliminary virtues, as valor, veracity, the spirit of obedience, the habit of discipline. Any of these, and of others like them, when possessed by a nation, and no matter how generated, will give them a military advantage, and make them more likely to stay in the race of nations.
Walter BagehotRead
Efficiency in an assembly requires a solid mass of steady votes; and these are collected by a deferential attachment to particular men, or by a belief in the principles that those men represent, and they are maintained by fear of those men - by the fear that if you vote against them, you may soon yourself have no vote at all.
Walter BagehotRead
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
Walter BagehotRead
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.
Walter BagehotRead
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