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Under a cabinet constitution at a sudden emergency this people can choose a ruler for the occasion. It is quite possible and even likely that he would not be ruler before the occasion. The great qualities, the imperious will, the rapid energy, the eager nature fit for a great crisis are not required — are impediments — in common times. A Lord Liverpool is better in everyday politics than a Chatham — a Louis Philippe far better than a Napoleon. By the structure of the world we want, at the sudden occurrence of a grave tempest, to change the helmsman — to replace the pilot of the calm by the pilot of the storm.
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No. I, "The Cabinet", p.29

 

Walter Bagehot

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