Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

Duty cannot exist without faith

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.

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.

Whatever they did, the Elysians were careful never to be vehement.

An obedient wife commands her husband.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.

In the hands of a genius, engineering turns to magic, philosophy becomes poetry, and science pure imagination.

Variety is the mother of Enjoyment.

All must respect those who respect themselves.

Without dancing you can never attain a perfectly graceful carriage, which is of the highest importance in life.

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

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

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission.

All my successes have been built on my failures.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

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.

There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

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.

When a man is going to try and borrow money, it is wise to look prosperous

When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.

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

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

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.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

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

You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men.

A precedent embalms a principle.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

There is no diplomacy like silence.

The essence of education is the education of the body.

Great men should think of opportunity and not of time. That is the excuse of feeble and puzzled spirits.

The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.

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.

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

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

The profound thinker always suspects that he is superficial.

A great thing is a great book; but a greater thing than all is the talk of a great man.

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

People are defeated by easy, victorious and cheap successes more than by adversity.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

Propriety of manners, and consideration for others, are the two main characteristics of a gentleman.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.