Isaac D'Israeli Quotes & Sayings

Beware of the man of one book.
[Lat., Home unius libri, or, cave ab homine unius libri.] — Isaac D'Israeli

The poet must be alike polished by an intercourse with the world as with the studies of taste; one to whom labour is negligence, refinement a science, and art a nature. — Isaac D'Israeli

Literary friendship is a sympathy not of manners, but of feelings. — Isaac D'Israeli

Golden volumes! richest treasures,
Objects of delicious pleasures!
You my eyes rejoicing please,
You my hand in rapture seize!
Brilliant wits and musing sages,
Lights who beam'd through many ages!
Left to your conscious leaves their story,
And dared to trust you with their glory;
And now their hope of fame achiev'd,
Dear volumes! you have not deceived! — Isaac D'Israeli

The greater part of our writers, ... have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them: and those who never quote in return are seldom quoted. — Isaac D'Israeli

The act of contemplation then creates the thing created. — Isaac D'Israeli

Candour is the brightest gem of criticism. — Isaac D'Israeli

Miscellanists are the most popular writers among every people; for it is they who form a communication between the learned and the unlearned, and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great divisions of the public. — Isaac D'Israeli

Quotations, like much better things, has its abuses. — Isaac D'Israeli

A well-read writer, with good taste, is one who has the command of the wit of other men; he searches where knowledge is to be found; and though he may not himself excel in invention, his ingenuity may compose one of those agreeable books, the deliciae of literature, that will out-last the fading meteors of his day. — Isaac D'Israeli

Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. — Isaac D'Israeli

Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius. — Isaac D'Israeli

Bayle, when writing on "Comets," discovered this; for having collected many things applicable to his work, as they stood quoted in some modern writers, when he came to compare them with their originals, he was surprised to find that they were nothing for his purpose! the originals conveyed a quite contrary sense to that of the pretended quoters, who often, from innocent blundering, and sometimes from purposed deception, had falsified their quotations. This is an useful story for second-hand authorities! — Isaac D'Israeli

All is extremely genteel; and there is almost as much repose as in the golden saloons of the contiguous palaces. At any rate, if there be as much vice, there is as little crime. — Isaac D'Israeli

Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor. — Isaac D'Israeli

The Self-Educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities. — Isaac D'Israeli

The Plagiarism of orators is the art, or an ingenious and easy mode, which some adroitly employ to change, or disguise, all sorts of speeches of their own composition, or that of other authors, for their pleasure, or their utility; in such a manner that it becomes impossible even for the author himself to recognise his own work, his own genius, and his own style, so skilfully shall the whole be disguised. — Isaac D'Israeli

The poet and the painter are only truly great by the mutual influences of their studies, and the jealousy of glory has only produced an idle contest. — Isaac D'Israeli

A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue. — Isaac D'Israeli

The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age. — Isaac D'Israeli

The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract. — Isaac D'Israeli

There is a society in the deepest solitude. — Isaac D'Israeli

Theories of genius are the peculiar constructions of our own philosophical times; ages of genius had passed away, and they left no other record than their works; no preconcerted theory described the workings of the imagination to be without imagination, nor did they venture to teach how to invent invention. — Isaac D'Israeli

Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities. — Isaac D'Israeli

Education, however indispensable in a cultivated age, produces nothing on the side of genius. When education ends, genius often begins. — Isaac D'Israeli

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us. — Isaac D'Israeli

Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, enthusiasm is the true part of genius. — Isaac D'Israeli

It does not at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting his team. — Isaac D'Israeli

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised. — Isaac D'Israeli

To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius - the men of reasoning and the men of imagination. — Isaac D'Israeli

The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places, and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the the mind upwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly. — Isaac D'Israeli

Quotation, like much better things, has its abuses. One may quote till one compiles. The ancient lawyers used to quote at the bar till they had stagnated their own cause. — Isaac D'Israeli

The wise make proverbs, and fools repeat them. — Isaac D'Israeli

Their chief residence was Bagdad, where they remained until the eleventh century, an age fatal in Oriental history, from the disasters of which the Princes of the Captivity were not exempt. — Isaac D'Israeli

Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius. — Isaac D'Israeli

Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth. — Isaac D'Israeli

Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonize. — Isaac D'Israeli

This is one of the results of that adventurous spirit which is now stalking forth and raging for its own innovations. We have not only rejected AUTHORITY, but have also cast away EXPERIENCE; and often the unburthened vessel is driving to all points of the compass, and the passengers no longer know whither they are going. The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by QUOTATION. — Isaac D'Israeli

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius. — Isaac D'Israeli

But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses. — Isaac D'Israeli

All this is labour which never meets the eye ... But too open and generous a revelation of the chapter and the page of the original quoted, has often proved detrimental to the legitimate honours of the quoter. They are unfairly appropriated by the next comer; the quoter is never quoted, but the authority he has afforded is produced by his successor with the air of an original research. — Isaac D'Israeli

If the golden gate of preferment is not usually opened to men of real merit, persons of no worth have entered it in a most extraordinary manner. — Isaac D'Israeli

A great work always leaves us in a state of musing. — Isaac D'Israeli

There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing. — Isaac D'Israeli

The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author. — Isaac D'Israeli

Proverbs were bright shafts in the Greek and Latin quivers ... — Isaac D'Israeli

A circle may be small, yet it may be as mathematically beautiful and perfect as a large one. — Isaac D'Israeli

The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces. — Isaac D'Israeli

After the golden age of Latinity, we gradually slide into the silver, and at length precipitately descend into the iron. — Isaac D'Israeli

The negroes are lovers of ludicrous actions, and hence all their ceremonies seem farcical. — Isaac D'Israeli

A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumnity, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principal has taken full effect on this state favorite. — Isaac D'Israeli

A work, however, should be judged by its design and its execution, and not by any preconceived notion of what it ought to be according to the critic, rather than the author. — Isaac D'Israeli

The delights of reading impart the vivacity of youth even to old age. — Isaac D'Israeli

The ancients, who in these matters were not perhaps such blockheads as some may conceive, considered poetical quotation as one of the requisite ornaments of oratory. — Isaac D'Israeli

Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius. — Isaac D'Israeli

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted! — Isaac D'Israeli

After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style. — Isaac D'Israeli

the french ambassador to spain, meeting cervantes,congratulated him on the great success and reputation gained by his "don quixote"; whereupon the author whispered in his ear: "had it not been for the inquisition, i should have made my book much more entertaining. — Isaac D'Israeli

An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age. — Isaac D'Israeli

The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves - the creature of habits and infirmities. — Isaac D'Israeli

There is such a thing as literary fashion, and prose and verse have been regulated by the same caprice that cuts our coats and cocks our hats. — Isaac D'Israeli

To bend and prostrate oneself to express sentiments of respect, appears to be a natural motion. — Isaac D'Israeli

Certain it is that their power increased always in an exact proportion to the weakness of the Caliphate, and, without doubt, in some of the most distracted periods of the Arabian rule, the Hebrew Princes rose into some degree of local and temporary importance. — Isaac D'Israeli

It is fortunate that Literature is in no ways injured by the follies of Collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily defend the good. — Isaac D'Israeli

Style! style! why, all writers will tell you that it is the very thing which can least of all be changed. A man's style is nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the throbbing of this pulse,
in short, as any part of his being is at least subjected to the action of the will. — Isaac D'Israeli

A poet is a painter of the soul. — Isaac D'Israeli

One may quote till one compiles. — Isaac D'Israeli

The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire. — Isaac D'Israeli

Every work of Genius is tinctured by the feelings, and often originates in the events of times. — Isaac D'Israeli

Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners — Isaac D'Israeli

Centuries have not worm-eaten the solidity of this ancient furniture of the mind. — Isaac D'Israeli

Such do not always understand the authors whose names adorn their barren pages, and which are taken, too, from the third or the thirtieth hand. Those who trust to such false quoters will often learn how contrary this transmission is to the sense and application of the original. Every transplantation has altered the fruit of the tree; every new channel, the quality of the stream in its remove from the spring-head. — Isaac D'Israeli