Disraeli Benjamin Quotes & Sayings

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

What are the most brilliant of our chymical discoveries compared with the invention of fire and the metals? — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Doubt is an element of criticism, and the tendency of criticism is necessarily skeptical. — Benjamin Disraeli

It is remarkable that when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus! — Benjamin Disraeli

Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error. — Benjamin Disraeli

Great revolutions, whatever may be their causes, are not lightly commenced, and are not concluded with precipitation. — Benjamin Disraeli

Without tact you can learn nothing. — Benjamin Disraeli

The noble lord is the Rupert of debate. — Benjamin Disraeli

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll. — Benjamin Disraeli

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children. — 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

One should conquer the world, not to enthrone a man, but an idea; for ideas exist forever. — Benjamin Disraeli

I do not believe such a quality as chance exists. Every incident that happens must be a link in a chain. — Benjamin Disraeli

At present the peace of the world has been preserved, not by statesmen, but by capitalists. — Benjamin Disraeli

A parsimony of words prodigal of sense. — Benjamin Disraeli

Departure should be sudden. — Benjamin Disraeli

There are some silent people who are more interesting than the best talkers. — Benjamin Disraeli

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens — Benjamin Disraeli

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

A good eater must be a good man; for a good eater must have a good digestion, and a good digestion depends upon a good conscience. — Benjamin Disraeli

England does not love coalitions. — Benjamin Disraeli

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness. — Benjamin Disraeli

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. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Every man should marry - and no woman — Benjamin Disraeli

A beautiful hand is an excellent thing in woman; it is a charm that never palls; and better than all, it is a means of fascinating that never disappears. — Benjamin Disraeli

In art the Greeks were the children of the Egyptians. The day may yet come when we shall do justice to the high powers of that mysterious and imaginative people. — Benjamin Disraeli

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. — Benjamin Disraeli

No man will treat with indifference the principle of race. It is the key to history, and why history is often so confused is that it has been written by men who are ignorant of this principle and all the knowledge it involves ... Language and religion do not make a race
there is only one thing which makes a race, and that is blood. — Benjamin Disraeli

Accent and emphasis are the pith of reading; punctuation is but secondary. — Benjamin Disraeli

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance. — Benjamin Disraeli

No, it is better not. She will only ask me to take a message to Albert. — Benjamin Disraeli

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens. — Benjamin Disraeli

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed. — Benjamin Disraeli

Where knowledge ends, religion begins. — Benjamin Disraeli

Political life must be taken as you find it. — Benjamin Disraeli

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm. — Benjamin Disraeli

Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always questioning never learn anything. — Benjamin Disraeli

Under this roof are the heads of the family of Rothschild - a name famous in every capital of Europe and every division of the globe. If you like, we shall divide the United States into two parts, one for you, James [Rothschild], and one for you, Lionel [Rothschild]. Napoleon will do exactly and all that I shall advise him. — Benjamin Disraeli

The depositary of power is always unpopular. — Benjamin Disraeli

There can be economy only where there is efficiency. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nine-tenths of all existing books are nonsense. — Benjamin Disraeli

You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete. — Benjamin Disraeli

Youth is the trustee of prosperity. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Quit the world, and the world forgets you. — Benjamin Disraeli

Variety is the mother of Enjoyment. — Benjamin Disraeli

If you don't believe in magic, then you can't believe in reality. — Benjamin Disraeli

The tone and tendency of liberalism ... is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the manners and customs of the people under the pretext of progress. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth. — Benjamin Disraeli

The secret of success is constancy to purpose. — Benjamin Disraeli

An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen. — Benjamin Disraeli

Enthusiasm is the breath of genius. — Benjamin Disraeli

To be famous when you are young is the fortune of the gods. — Benjamin Disraeli

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it. — Benjamin Disraeli

The characteristic of the present age is craving credulity. — Benjamin Disraeli

Justice is truth in action.

~ BENJAMIN DISRAELI, speech, Feb. 11, 1851 — Benjamin Disraeli

As a rule, man is a fool. When it's hot, he wants it cool; When its cool, he wants it hot. Always wanting, what is not. — Benjamin Disraeli

Life is too short to be little. You must enlarge your imagination and then act on it. — Benjamin Disraeli

That doctrine of peace at any price has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world. — Benjamin Disraeli

Significantly, it was Disraeli who said, "What is a crime among the multitude is only a vice among the few" - perhaps the most profound insight into the very principle by which the slow and insidious decline of nineteenth-century society into the depth of mob and underworld morality took place. Since he knew this rule, he knew also that Jews would have no better chances anywhere than in circles which pretended to be exclusive and to discriminate against them; for inasmuch as these circles of the few, together with the multitude, thought of Jewishness as a crime, this "crime" could be transformed at any moment into an attractive "vice." Disraeli's display of eroticism, strangeness, mysteriousness, magic, and power drawn from secret sources, was aimed correctly at this disposition in society. — Hannah Arendt

Destiny is our will, and our will is nature. — Benjamin Disraeli

Do not read history. Read biography for it is life without theory. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Change is as inexorable as time, yet nothing meets with more resistance. — Benjamin Disraeli

A man's fate is his own temper; and according to that will be his opinion as to the particular manner in which the course of events is regulated. A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance. — 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

Taste, when once obtained, may be said to be no acquiring faculty, and must remain stationary; but knowledge is of perpetual growth and has infinite demands. Taste, like an artificial canal, winds through a beautiful country, but its borders are confined and its term is limited. Knowledge navigates the ocean, and is perpetually on voyages of discovery. — Benjamin Disraeli

Customs may not be as wise as laws, but they are always more popular. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

The right hon. Gentleman [Sir Robert Peel] caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. — Benjamin Disraeli

There are three types of lies
lies, damn lies, and statistics. — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Sir, I shall not defeat you - I shall transcend you. — Benjamin Disraeli

It is the lot of man to suffer. — Benjamin Disraeli

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are. — Benjamin Disraeli

All Paradise opens! Let me die eating ortolans to the sound of soft music! — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Grief is the agony of an instant: the indulgence of grief is the blunder of life. — Benjamin Disraeli

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard. — Benjamin Disraeli

We are now in want of an art to teach how books are to be read rather than to read them. Such an art is practicable. — Benjamin Disraeli

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations. — Benjamin Disraeli

'A sound Conservative government,' said Taper, musingly. 'I understand: Tory men and Whig measures.' — Benjamin Disraeli

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

Books," says E. P. Whipple, "are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time." "As a rule," said Benjamin Disraeli, "the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information. — Orison Swett Marden