Benjamin Disraeli
, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield (21 December 1804 - 19 April 1881) British politician, novelist, and essayist.
= Sourced=
- I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up.
- Popanilla (1827) Ch. 7 referring to the Motto of "Vraibleusia".
- It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.
- The Young Duke (1831) Bk. III, Ch. 2, ¶1
- Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
- We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers.
- The Young Duke (1831) Bk. I, Ch. 11
- I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many of the prejudices of the few.
- Campaign speech at High Wycombe, England (November 27, 1832)
- I will sit down now, but the time will come when you will hear me.
- First Speech in the House of Commons (1837)
- Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.
- On Import Duties (April 25, 1843)
- Variant: This is phrase is sometimes encountered on the internet as a misquotation that is its contrary: Protection is not a principle but an expedient.
- Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle; old age a regret.
- A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
- Speech on agricultural Interests (March 17, 1845)
- He was fash and full of faith that "something would turn up".
- Tancred (1847) Bk. III, ch. 6
- When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.
- Tancred (1847) Bk. IV, ch. 4
- Everything comes if a man will only wait.
- Tancred (1847) Bk. IV, ch. 8
- A precedent embalms a principle.
- Speech on the Expenditures of the Country, (Feb. 22, 1848)
- Justice is truth in action.
- How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
- Variant: It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
- Speech, (January 24, 1860)
- Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.
- The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity.
- Speech at Oxford Diocesan Conference (Nov. 25, 1864)
- What is the question now placed before society with the glib assurance which to me is most astonishing? That question is this: Is man an ape or an angel? I, my lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence those new fangled theories.
- Variant: The question is this— Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories.
- Variant: Is man an ape or an angel? Now, I am on the side of the angels!
- Speech at Oxford Diocesan Conference (Nov. 25, 1864)
- Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
- Ignorance never settles a question.
- Speech in the House of Commons (May 14, 1866)
- Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
- Speech at Manchester (1866)
- I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister, who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity.
- "Change is inevitable. In a progressive country change is constant."
- Variant: Change is inevitable in a progressive country, change is constant.
- Variant: In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.
- Speech in Edinburgh (1867)
- The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
- The author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
- Speech at Glasgow (Nov. 19, 1870)
- Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.
- Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.
- Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester, April 3, 1872.
- A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.
- Speech, House of Commons, March 8, 1873.
- For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering.
- Source: In a Letter to Lord Grey de Wilton, October 3, 1873.— W. F. Monypenny and George Earl Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, vol. 5, chapter 7, p. 262 (1920).
- A sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself.
- Speech at Riding School, London, July 27, 1878.
- The hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.
- Speech, Guildhall, London, Nov. 9, 1878.
Vivian Grey (1826)
- The microcosm of a public school.
- I hate definitions.
- Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books.
- Variety is the mother of Enjoyment.
- Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.
- I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.
Sybil, or The Two Nations (1845)
- Property has its duties as well as its rights.
- To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.
- Variant: To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
- But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day, and the race a life.
- The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame; a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others.
- Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
Lothair (1870)
- My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
- The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
- You know who critics are?— the men who have failed in literature and art.
Endymion (1880)
- The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right.
- "As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion."
"Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince.
"Sensible men never tell."
= Attributed =
- Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
- If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.
- A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.
- A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art.
- A majority is always better than the best repartee.
- A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.
- A person's fate is their own temper.
- All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil.
- Amusement to an observing mind is study.
- An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.
- As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.
- As for our majority... one is enough.
- Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.
- Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.
- Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.
- Candor is the brightest gem of criticism.
- Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.
- Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.
- Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.
- Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.
- Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.
- Dear Sir: I thank you for sending me a copy of your book, which I shall waste no time in reading.
- This is reputed to have been Disraeli's standard reply to unsolicited manuscripts and publications.
- Debt is a prolific mother of folly and of crime.
- Demagogues and agitators are very unpleasant, they are incidental to a free and constitutional country, and you must put up with these inconveniences or do without many important advantages.
- Despair is the conclusion of fools.
- Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
- Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
- Duty cannot exist without faith.
- Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.
- Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.
- Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to Royalty, you should lay it on with a thick trowel.
- Variant: Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.
- Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.
- Fear makes us feel our humanity.
- Finality is not the language of politics.
- Frank and explicit— that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.
- Great countries are those that produce great people.
- Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.
- Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
- Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress.
- He thinks posterity is a pack-horse, always ready to be loaded.
- He traces the steam engine all the way back to the tea kettle.
- His shortcoming is his long staying.
- I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.
- I feel a very unusual sensation— if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
- I have always thought that every woman should marry— and no man.
- I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.
- I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.
- Variant: I never refuse. I contradict. I sometimes forget.
- I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.
- If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.
- If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that I suppose would be a calamity.
- Variant: The difference between a misfortune and a calamity is this: If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, that would be a calamity.
- If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
- In politics nothing is contemptible.
- It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
- It is knowledge that influences and equalizes the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.
- It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.
- Variant: Man is only great when he acts from passion.
- Variant: Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions.
- King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.
- Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
- Life is too short to be small.
- Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
- Little things affect little minds.
- London is a roost for every bird.
- Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.
- Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.
- Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.
- Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.
- Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.
- Variant: Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.
- Never complain and never explain.
- Never take anything for granted.
- News is that which comes from the North, East, West and South, and if it comes from only one point on the compass, then it is a class publication and not news.
- Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forgo an advantage.
- No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.
- Variant: No government can be long secure without formidable opposition.
- No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.
- Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.
- Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.
- Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
- On the education of the people of this country the fate of the country depends.
- Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
- One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
- Variant: The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
- Variant: The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.
- Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
- Power has only one duty— to secure the social welfare of the People.
- Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
- Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.
- Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
- Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.
- Success is the child of audacity.
- Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
- Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.
- Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.
- The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.
- The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.
- The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.
- The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
- The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.
- The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.
- Variant: The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end.
- The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
- The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments' plans.
- The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.
- The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.
- The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.
- The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.
- The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.
- The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.
- The noble Lord was the Prince Rupert to the Parliamentary army— his valour did not always serve his own cause.
- The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.
- The press is not only free, it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy.
- The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.
- The right honourable gentleman is reminiscent of a poker. The only difference is that a poker gives off the occasional signs of warmth. (On Robert Peel)
- The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools.
- The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.
- The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.
- The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
- There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
- This was attributed to Disraeli by Mark Twain, to whom the phrase has also been attributed. The earliest known use of it is actually that of Leonard H. Courtney, whom Twain might have thought to be referring to Disraeli in the essay in which he declared it.
- There can be economy only where there is efficiency.
- There is moderation even in excess.
- There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.
- There is no education like adversity.
- There is no gambling like politics.
- There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.
- Variant: There is no index of character so sure as the voice.
- There is no wisdom like frankness.
- They that touch pitch will be defiled.
- Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.
- To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them.
- To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.
- Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.
- Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.
- We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
- We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.
- Variant: Youth is the trustee of prosperity.
- We moralize among ruins.
- We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.
- What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few.
- What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.
- What usually comes first is the contract.
- What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.
- Variant: What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.
- When I want to read a book, I write one.
- When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
- When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.
- Where knowledge ends, religion begins.
- William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.
- Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.
- Without tact you can learn nothing.
- Worry— a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.
- You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.
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