Benjamin Disraeli Quotes & Sayings

The test of political institutions is the condition of the country whose future they regulate. — Benjamin Disraeli

Consider Ireland ... You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question. — Benjamin Disraeli

There is no index of character as sure as the voice. — Benjamin Disraeli

And it is a singular truth that, though a man may shake off national habits, accent, manner of thinking, style of dress,
though he may become perfectly identified with another nation, and speak its language well, perhaps better than his own,
yet never can he succeed in changing his handwriting to a foreign style. — Benjamin Disraeli

How fair is a garden amid the toils and passions of existence. — Benjamin Disraeli

Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nature is stronger than education. — Benjamin Disraeli

The feeling of satiety, almost inseparable from large possessions, is a surer cause of misery than ungratified desires. — Benjamin Disraeli

Silence is the mother of truth. — Benjamin Disraeli

Lady Lytton rules her husband, but that I suppose is always the case where marriages are what is called 'happy'. — Benjamin Disraeli

Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses - half the cabinet are not asses. — Benjamin Disraeli

Debt is a prolific mother of folly and of crime. — Benjamin Disraeli

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions. — Benjamin Disraeli

The girl of the period sets up to be natural, and is only rude; mistakes insolence for innocence; says everything that comes first to her lips, and thinks she is gay when she is only giddy. — Benjamin Disraeli

Most people die with their music still locked up inside them. — Benjamin Disraeli

Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the
arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race ... All is race, there is no other truth. — Benjamin Disraeli

O Music! Miraculous art! A blast of thy trumpet and millions rush forward to die; a peal of thy organ and uncounted nations sink down to pray. — Benjamin Disraeli

The fool wonders, the wise man asks. — Benjamin Disraeli

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. — Benjamin Disraeli

There is a thread in our thoughts as there is a pulse in our feelings; he who can hold the one knows how to think, and he who can move the other knows how to feel. — Benjamin Disraeli

Genius, when young, is divine. — Benjamin Disraeli

The indulgence in grief is a blunder. — Benjamin Disraeli

He was one of these men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet. — Benjamin Disraeli

The difference between talent and genius is this: while the former usually develops some special branch of our faculties, the latter commands them all. When the former is combined with tact, it is often more than a match for the latter. — Benjamin Disraeli

What art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern; the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men, the useful has succeeded to the beautiful. — Benjamin Disraeli

"Sorry" only counts for that which it cannot alter. — Benjamin Disraeli

Proverbs were anterior to boots, and formed the wisdom of the vulgar, and in the earliest ages were the unwritten laws of morality. — Benjamin Disraeli

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

She is an excellent creature, but she can never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans. — Benjamin Disraeli

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools. — Benjamin Disraeli

I feel a very unusual sensation - if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. — Benjamin Disraeli

And then they say one is misanthropical. Hang it! who can help being misanthropical when he finds everybody getting on in life except himself? — Benjamin Disraeli

England does not love coalitions. — Benjamin Disraeli

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

The disappointment of manhood succeeds the delusion of youth. — Benjamin Disraeli

London; a nation, not a city. — Benjamin Disraeli

Scientific, like spiritual truth, has ever from the beginning been descending from heaven to man. — Benjamin Disraeli

It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing else can be so pretty! A cluster of vapor, the cream of the milky way, a sort of celestial cheese, churned into light. — Benjamin Disraeli

Our domestic affections are the most salutary basis of all good government. — Benjamin Disraeli

We are indeed a nation of shopkeepers. — Benjamin Disraeli

Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace
but a peace I hope with honour. — Benjamin Disraeli

I look upon parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly one most suited to England. But without the discipline of political connection, animated by the principle of private honor, I feel certain that a popular assembly would sink before the power or the corruption of a minister. — Benjamin Disraeli

There is no education like adversity. — Benjamin Disraeli

The gondola of London [a hansom]. — Benjamin Disraeli

There is no gambling like politics. Nothing in which the power of circumstance is more evident. — Benjamin Disraeli

How very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. On the contrary, if a man has by any chance an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts. — Benjamin Disraeli

A practical man is a man who practices the errors of his forefathers. — Benjamin Disraeli

Whenever you see a man who is successful in society, try to discover what makes him pleasing, and if possible adopt his system. — Benjamin Disraeli

Change is constant in a progressive country. — Benjamin Disraeli

Duty cannot exist without faith. — Benjamin Disraeli

Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing. — Benjamin Disraeli

The praise of a fool is incense to the wisest of us ... — Benjamin Disraeli

All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil. — Benjamin Disraeli

There is no greater sin than to be trop prononce. — Benjamin Disraeli

Frank and explicit - that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others. — Benjamin Disraeli

Luck is what a capricious man believes in. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nonsense, when earnest, is impressive, and sometimes takes you in. If you are in a hurry, you occasionally mistake it for sense. — Benjamin Disraeli

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend. — Benjamin Disraeli

Justice is truth in action. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. — Benjamin Disraeli

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect. — Benjamin Disraeli

Other men condemned to exile and captivity, if they survive, despair; the man of letters may reckon those days as the sweetest of his life — Benjamin Disraeli

Truth travels slowly, but it will reach even you in time. — Benjamin Disraeli

One event makes another. What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens; and time can only prove which is most for our advantage. — Benjamin Disraeli

A sophisticated rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity. — Benjamin Disraeli

What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment. — Benjamin Disraeli

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation. — Benjamin Disraeli

I grew intoxicated with my own eloquence. — Benjamin Disraeli

The press is not only free, it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy. It was not granted by monarchs, it was not gained for us by aristocracies ; but it
sprang from the people, and, with an immortal instinct, it has always worked for the people. — Benjamin Disraeli

Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People. — Benjamin Disraeli

Great countries are those that produce great people. — Benjamin Disraeli

The English nation is never so great as in adversity. — Benjamin Disraeli

No one for a moment can pretend that printing is so great a discovery as writing, or algebra as a language. — Benjamin Disraeli

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. — Benjamin Disraeli

The profound thinker always suspects that he is superficial. — Benjamin Disraeli

What is crime amongst the multitude, is only vice among the few. — Benjamin Disraeli

Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation. — Benjamin Disraeli

Ah, Ireland ... That damnable, delightful country, where everything that is right is the opposite of what it ought to be. — Benjamin Disraeli

Jews show so near an affinity to you ... Where is your Christianity if you do not believe in their Judaism? — Benjamin Disraeli

Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power. — Benjamin Disraeli

It is well-known what a middleman is; he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other. — Benjamin Disraeli

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time. — Benjamin Disraeli

You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe in which the
Jews do NOT greatly participate. The first Jesuits were Jews. — Benjamin Disraeli

I was told that the privileged and the people formed two nations. — Benjamin Disraeli

Departures should be sudden. — Benjamin Disraeli

Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nature is more powerful than education; time will develop everything. — Benjamin Disraeli

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 or the prejudices of the few. — Benjamin Disraeli

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. — Benjamin Disraeli

What we call the heart is a nervous sensation, like shyness, which gradually disappears in society. It is fervent in the nursery, strong in the domestic circle, tumultuous at school. — Benjamin Disraeli

There are exceptions to all rules, but it seldom answers to follow the advice of an opponent. — Benjamin Disraeli

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action. — Benjamin Disraeli

Man is only great when he acts from passion. — Benjamin Disraeli

To do nothing and get something, formed a boy's ideal of a manly career. — Benjamin Disraeli

All power is a trust, that we are accountable for its exercise. — Benjamin Disraeli

The most powerful men are not public men: a public man is responsible, and a responsible man is a slave. It is private life that governs the world. — Benjamin Disraeli

London owes everything to its press: it owes as much to its press as it does to its being the seat of government and the law. — Benjamin Disraeli

I have lived long enough to know that the evening glow of love has its own riches and splendour. — Benjamin Disraeli

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; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws ... THE RICH AND THE POOR. — Benjamin Disraeli

It is the fashion to style the present moment an extraordinary crisis. — Benjamin Disraeli