Benjamin Disraeli: Trending quotes (page 2)

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“Ignorance never settles a question.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Question

“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.

Success , Secret , Success

“It is fourteen years ago since yourself, then the leader of the country gentlemen…appealed to me to assist you at a moment of apparently overwhelming disaster. I ultimately agreed to do so…because, from my earliest years, my sympathies had been with the landed interest of England.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Sir William Miles (11 June 1860), 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), pp. 23–24

Country

“Never explain, never complain.”

Benjamin Disraeli

“Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Upon being asked to offer the young son of a member of Parliament advice, cited in Wilfrid Meynell, Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography (1903), p. 83.
Sourced but undated

“With words we govern men.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Part 1, Chapter 21.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

Men

“I hate definitions.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book II, Chapter 6.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

Hate

“We moralise among ruins.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Bk. V, Ch. 5.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“Without publicity there can be no public spirit, and without public spirit every nation must decay.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1871/aug/08/third-reading in the House of Commons (8 August 1871).

“Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.”

Benjamin Disraeli

A Welsh triad cited in A Vindication of the Genuineness of the Ancient British Poems of Aneurin, Taliesin, Llywarch Hen, and Merdin (1803), by Sharon Turner, reads, "The three pillars of learning; seeing much, suffering much, and studying much". This was quoted from Turner by Isaac D'Israeli in his The Amenities of Literature (1841) and, through the confusion of father with son, has come to be falsely attributed to Benjamin Disraeli.
Misattributed

Study , Suffering , Learning

“A man's fate is his own temper.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book VI, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

Fate

“Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Isaac D'Israeli, Curiosities of Literature, "Quotation".
Misattributed, Isaac D'Israeli

“Everyone likes flattery, and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel.”

Benjamin Disraeli

In a letter to Matthew Arnold, as quoted in Stanley Weintraub, Victoria. Biography of a queen (1987), p. 412.
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“We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.”

Benjamin Disraeli book Tancred

Tancred, Chapter 46.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“To govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Letter to his father from Malta (25 August 1830), cited in Lord Beaconsfield's Letters, 1830-1852 (1882), p. 32
1830s

Men

“I say, then, assuming, as I have given you reason to assume, that the price of wheat, when this system is established, ranges in England at 35s. per quarter, and other grain in proportion, this is not a question of rent, but it is a question of displacing the labour of England that produces corn, in order, on an extensive and even universal scale, to permit the entrance into this country of foreign corn produced by foreign labour. Will that displaced labour find new employment? … But what are the resources of this kind of industry to employ and support the people, supposing the great depression in agricultural produce occur which is feared—that this great revolution, as it has appropriately been called, takes place—that we cease to be an agricultural people—what are the resources that would furnish employment to two-thirds of the subverted agricultural population—in fact, from 3,500,000 to 4,000,000 of people? Assume that the workshop of the world principle is carried into effect—assume that the attempt is made to maintain your system, both financial and domestic, on the resources of the cotton trade—assume that, in spite of hostile tariffs, that already gigantic industry is doubled…you would only find increased employment for 300,000 of your population…What must be the consequence? I think we have pretty good grounds for anticipating social misery and political disaster.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/may/15/corn-importation-bill-adjourned-debate in the House of Commons (15 May 1846).
1840s

Hostility , People , World , Fear

“Where knowledge ends, religion begins.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Remark, attributed in John Gordon Stewart Drysdale and John James Drysdale, The Protoplasmic Theory of Life (1874), p. 279 (note).
Sourced but undated

Religion , Knowledge