Benjamin Disraeli Quotes (306 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Benjamin Disraeli

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Famous Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

“Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”

Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870)
Variant: Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

“The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book 4, chapter 1. Often misquoted as "The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end".
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)

“The secret of success is constancy to purpose.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech at banquet of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), cited in "Mr. Disraeli at Sydenham," The Times (25 June 1872), p. 8.

“Ignorance never settles a question.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech in the House of Commons (14 May 1866)

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“We make our own fortunes and we call them fate.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli Quotes about homeland

“There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/mar/17/agricultural-interest in the House of Commons (17 March 1845). 1840s

“You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people. You must act as if everything depended on your individual efforts. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Go to your homes, and teach there these truths, which will soon be imprinted on the conscience of the land. Make each man feel how much rests on his own exertions... Act in this spirit, and you will succeed. You will maintain your country in its present position. But you will do more than that, you will deliver to your posterity a land of liberty, of prosperity, of power, and of glory.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech to the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), quoted in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Volume II, ed. T. E. Kebbel (1882), pp. 534-535

“Her Majesty's present Ministers have hitherto been enabled to secure that peace, so necessary to the welfare of all the civilized countries, and so peculiarly the interest of our own. But this ineffable blessing cannot be obtained by the passive principle of non-interference. Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendancy, of England in the Councils of Europe. ... May [the election] return to Westminster a Parliament not unworthy of the power of England and resolved to maintain it!”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Election address; letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Marlborough (8 March 1880), quoted in The Times (9 March 1880), p. 8

“[T]here are some who challenge the expediency of the Imperial character of this realm. Having attempted, and failed, to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may, perhaps, now recognize in the disintegration of the United Kingdom a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate their purpose. The immediate dissolution of Parliament will afford an opportunity to the nation to decide upon a course which will materially influence its fortunes and shape its destiny. Rarely in this century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend on the verdict of the country.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Election address; letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Marlborough (8 March 1880), quoted in The Times (9 March 1880), p. 8

“I come forward as the supporter of that great interest which is the only solid basis of the social fabric, and, convinced that the sound prosperity of this country depends upon the protected industry of the farmer, I would resist that spirit of rash and experimental legislation which is fast hurrying this once glorious Empire to the agony of civil convulsion.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Address to the electors of Buckinghamshire (12 December 1832), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 225

“For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Lord Grey de Wilton (3 October 1873), cited in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, Vol. 5 (1920), p. 262.

Benjamin Disraeli Quotes about people

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

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

Not Disraeli but La Rochefoucauld; it is Maxim 308 in his Reflections.
Misattributed

“The life of this people greatly accords with my taste, which is naturally somewhat indolent and melancholy... To repose on voluptuous ottomans and smoke superb pipes, daily to indulge in the luxuries of a bath which requires half a dozen attendants for its perfection; to court the air in a carved caïque, by shores which are a perpetual scene; and to find no exertion greater than a canter on a barb; this is, I think, a far more sensible life than all the bustle of clubs, all the boring of drawing-rooms, and all the coarse vulgarity of our political controversies.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Edward Lytton Bulwer from Constantinople, Turkey (27 December 1830), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 174

“I look upon the Whigs as an anti-national party. … Believing that the policy of the party was such as must destroy the honour of the kingdom abroad and the happiness of the people at home, I considered it my duty to oppose the Whigs, to ensure their discomfiture, and, if possible, their destruction.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech in Taunton (28 April 1835), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 286
1830s

“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli: Trending quotes

“Though lions to their enemies they were lambs to their friends.”

Benjamin Disraeli

The infernal Marriage, part 2, Chapter 4 (1834).
Books

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Despair is the conclusion of fools.”

Benjamin Disraeli

The Wondrous Tale of Alroy pt. 10, ch. 17.
Books

Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

“Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 8.

“Free trade is not a principle; it is an expedient.”

Benjamin Disraeli

On Import Duties (25 April 1843). Compare: "It is a condition which confronts us, not a theory" (Grover Cleveland, Annual Message, 1887, in reference to the tariff); "Protection is not a principle but an expedient" (below).
1840s

“I am not ashamed or afraid to say that I wish more sympathy had been shown on both sides towards the Chartists. … I am not ashamed to say that I sympathise with millions of my fellow-subjects.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech in the House of Commons (28 January 1840), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 485
1840s

“I shall withhold my support from every Ministry which will not originate some great measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Address (1 October 1832), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 221
1830s

“[R]eciprocity is barter. I always understood that barter was the last effort of civilization that it was exactly that state of human exchange that separated civilization from savagery; and if reciprocity is only barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difficulty. ... [W]hen he taunts me with his quotation of some musty phrases of mine 40 years ago, I must remind him that we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity...have they the materials for negotiating treaties of reciprocity? You have lost the opportunity. I do not want to enter into the argument at the present moment; but England cannot pursue that policy.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech in the House of Lords on the agricultural depression (29 April 1879), reported in The Times (30 April 1879), p. 8

“Your aim is to reduce every thing to your own mean level—to degrade every thing to your malignant standard... In all your conduct it is not difficult to detect the workings of a mean and long mortified spirit suddenly invested with power,—the struggles of a strong ambition attempting, by a wanton exercise of authority, to revenge the disgrace of a feeble intellect.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: 'Letter VII. to Lord John Russell' (30 January 1836), The Letters of Runnymede (1836), pp. 60-61

“Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (c. 8 September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume. I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 108

“Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 107

“Head of Christ by Morales, exactly as in the description in the pseudo letter of the Roman Proconsul. Morales well entitled to his surname of Divino... [T]he auburn locks seem only prevented from growing over the countenance by the moiety of the star which forms the glory: everything which can even be conceived as necessary to the formation of a face of perfect beauty, but nothing earthly in the appearance. You could not mistake the head for an Apollo or an Adonis. The eyes, beaming with human beauty, are nevertheless bright with the effulgence of celestial light, and fixed upon no particular object. They seem looking on the world. The nose is exquisitely formed, and the flesh tints seem immortal.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Diary entry while in Aix (c. 16 August 1824), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (1929), pp. 52-53

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Attributed to Disraeli by Mark Twain in "Chapters from My Autobiography — XX", North American Review No. DCXVIII (JULY 5, 1907) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19987. His attribution is considered unreliable, and the actual origin is uncertain, with one of the earliest known publications of such a phrase being that of Leonard H. Courtney: see Lies, damned lies, and statistics. Misattributed

“I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Campaign speech at High Wycombe (27 November 1832), cited in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Vol. 1 (1882).
1830s
Context: 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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/apr/11/maynooth-college in the House of Commons (11 April 1845). 1840s Context: Sir, it is very easy to complain of party Government, and there may be persons capable of forming an opinion on this subject who may entertain a deep objection to that Government, and know to what that objection leads. But there are others who shrug their shoulders, and talk in a slipshod style on this head, who, perhaps, are not exactly aware of what the objections lead to. These persons should understand, that if they object to party Government, they do, in fact, object to nothing more nor less than Parliamentary Government. A popular assembly without parties&mdash;500 isolated individuals&mdash; cannot stand five years against a Minister with an organized Government without becoming a servile Senate.

“I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872), cited in The World's Best Orations from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Vol. 1 (eds. David Josiah Brewer, Edward Archibald Allen, William Schuyler), pp. 309-338.
Context: Gentl, I am a party man. I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible. I look upon Parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly the one most suited to England.

“Wherever was found what was called a paternal government was found a state education. It had been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience was to commence tyranny in the nursery.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech in House of Commons, as recorded (in third person) in the | minutes of 20 June, 1839 http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1839/jun/20/education-adjourned-debate#S3V0048P0_18390620_HOC_4. 1830s Context: [It appears to me that] the Society of Education, that school of philosophers, were, with all their vaunted intellect and learning, fast returning to the system of a barbarous age, the system of a paternal government. Wherever was found what was called a paternal government was found a state education. It had been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience was to commence tyranny in the nursery. There was a country in which education formed the only qualification for office. That was, therefore, a country which might be considered as a normal school and pattern society for the intended scheme of education. That country was China. These paternal governments were rather to be found in the east than in the west, and if the hon. Member for Waterford asked [me] for the most perfect programme of public education, if he asked [me] to point out a system at once the most profound and the most comprehensive, [I] must give him the system of education which obtained in Persia. Leaving China and Persia and coming to Europe, [I] found a perfect system of national education in Austria, the China of Europe, and under the paternal government of Prussia. The truth was, that wherever everything was left to the government the subject became a machine.

“England does not love coalitions.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1852/dec/16/ways-and-means-financial-statement in the House of Commons (16 December 1852). 1850s Context: Yes! I know what I have to face. I have to face a coalition. The combination may be successful. A coalition has before this been successful. But coalitions, although successful, have always found this, that their triumph has been brief. This too I know, that England does not love coalitions.

“Assassination has never changed the history of the world.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Addressing the House of Commons after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (1 May 1865).
1860s
Context: There are rare instances when the sympathy of a nation approaches those tenderer feelings which are generally supposed to be peculiar to the individual, and to be the happy privilege of private life, and this is one. Under any circumstances we should have bewailed the catastrophe at Washington; under any circumstances we should have shuddered at the means by which it was accomplished. But in the character of the victim, and even in the accessories of his last moments, there is something so homely and innocent, that it takes the question, as it were, out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy; it touches the heart of nations, and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind.
Whatever the various and varying opinions in this House, and in the country generally, on the policy of the late President of the United States, all must agree that in one of the severest trials which ever tested the moral qualities of man he fulfilled his duty with simplicity and strength. …When such crimes are perpetrated the public mind is apt to fall into gloom and perplexity, for it is ignorant alike of the causes and the consequences of such deeds. But it is one of our duties to reassure them under unreasoning panic and despondency. Assassination has never changed the history of the world. I will not refer to the remote past, though an accident has made the most memorable instance of antiquity at this moment fresh in the minds and memory of all around me. But even the costly sacrifice of a Caesar did not propitiate the inexorable destiny of his country.

“I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Cited in Herbert Henry Asquith, Letters of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith to a Friend, Vol. 2 (1933), p. 94.
Sourced but undated
Context: Miss Sands told me that Queen Victoria, who was latterly éprise with Disraeli, one day asked him what was his real religion. "Madam," he replied, "I am the blank page between the Old Testament and the New."

“Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech at Aylesbury, Royal and Central Bucks Agricultural Association (21 September 1865), cited in Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, Collected from his Writings and Speeches (1881), p. 356
1860s

“When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Part 6, Chapter 3
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

“A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.'

That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Never apologize for showing feeling, my friend. Remember that when you do so, you apologize for truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Part 1, Chapter 13; sometimes paraphrased: "Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth."
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

“All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Part 5, Chapter 18.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

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

Benjamin Disraeli

“This shows how much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1860/jan/24/address-in-answer-to-her-majestys-speech in the House of Commons (24 January 1860); see also Lord Byron, "Notes to Canto II" (1812), Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: "How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct". 1860s Variant: How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

“To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book 1, chapter 5.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845)
Variant: To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

“Sir, I shall not defeat you - I shall transcend you.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Benjamin Disraeli

Book VIII, Chapter 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

“Little things affect little minds.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“When I want to read a novel, I write one.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“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.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“A canter is the cure for all evil.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“The expected always happens”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Everything comes if a man will only wait.”

Benjamin Disraeli book Tancred

Bk. IV, Ch. 8.
Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Romance has been elegantly defined as the offspring of fiction and love.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“My idea of an agreeable person," said Hugo Bohun, "is a person who agrees with me.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 35.

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

Benjamin Disraeli

Part 1, Chapter 23.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

“But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 36.

“Experience is the child of Thought, and Thought is the child of Action. We can not learn men from books.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book V, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

“Life is too short to be little.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Coningsby, or, The New Generation

“Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which we endure, and generally create ourselves.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.”

Benjamin Disraeli

The Wondrous Tale of Alroy, pt. 10, ch. 3.
Books

“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

Speech to Wynyard Horticultural Show (1848), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 709.
1840s