Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.
Walter BagehotRead
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The scarcity of good books is due to a lack of knowledgeable writers.
Walter Bagehot's quote emphasizes that the quality and quantity of good literature are heavily dependent on the expertise and insight of the authors. It suggests that most aspiring writers lack the substantial knowledge or understanding necessary to create meaningful and impactful works, leading to a proliferation of mediocre books.
Themes
BooksWritingKnowledgeLiteratureEducation
In practice
Example use cases
In a literature class, one might use this quote to discuss the importance of knowledge in writing.
More from Walter Bagehot
All quotes βIt is good to be without vices, but it is not good to be without temptations.
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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.
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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.
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Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
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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.
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