A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"A majority is always better than the best repartee."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"A precedent embalms a principle."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"A sophistical 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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: University
"A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Happiness
"Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Mystery
"All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil."
--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
"An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Assassination has never changed the history of the world."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Candor
"Candor is the brightest gem of criticism."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Change is inevitable. Change is constant."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Change is inevitable. In a progressive country change is constant."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Character
"Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Debt
"Debt is a prolific mother of folly and of crime."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Despair
"Despair is the conclusion of fools."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Diligence is the mother of good fortune."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Duty cannot exist without faith."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Fear makes us feel our humanity."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Finality is not the language of politics."
--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
Topic: Candor
"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
"Great countries are those that produce great people."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Grief
"Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"He traces the steam engine all the way back to the tea kettle."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Ideas
"He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"His shortcoming is his long staying."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."
--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 of the prejudices of the few."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"I feel a very unusual sensation - if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Marriage
"I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"I never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Diplomacy
"I never refuse. I contradict. I sometimes forget."
--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
"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
"I say that justice is truth in action."
--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
"If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that I suppose would be a calamity."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Compromise
"If you are not very clever, you should be conciliatory."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Ignorance never settles a question."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Change
"In a progressive country change is constant; ... change ... is inevitable."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"In politics nothing is contemptible."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Criticism
"It is much easier to be critical than to be correct."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Justice is truth in action."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Travel
"Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Trifles
"Little things affect little minds."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"London is a roost for every bird."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Man is only great when he acts from passion."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe."
--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
"Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Never complain and never explain."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Never take anything for granted."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Communication
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forgo an advantage."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"No government can be long secure without formidable opposition."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Manners
"Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Thought
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"On the education of the people of this country the fate of the country depends."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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.""
--Benjamin Disraeli
"One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Protection is not a principle but an expedient."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Real politics are the possession and distribution of power."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Silence is the mother of truth."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Success
"Success is the child of audacity."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Value
"Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The art of governing mankind by deceiving them."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Race
"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
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The fool wonders, the wise man asks."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Friendship
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity."
--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
Topic: Love
"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The more you are talked about the less powerful you are."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Freedom Of The Press
"The press is not only free, it is powerful. That power is ours. It is the proudest that man can enjoy."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"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."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Success
"The secret of success is constancy of purpose."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Purpose
"The secret of success is constancy to purpose."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Youth
"The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There can be economy only where there is efficiency."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There is moderation even in excess."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There is no education like adversity."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There is no gambling like politics."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"There is no index of character so sure as the voice."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Candor
"There is no wisdom like frankness."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"They that touch pitch will be defiled."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder."
--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. The rich and the poor."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Education
"Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends."
--Benjamin Disraeli
Topic: Love
"We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end."
--Benjamin Disraeli
"We cannot learn men from books."
--Benjamin Disraeli
