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“Our morals differ in different counties, in different towns, in different streets, even in different Acts of Parliament. What is moral in London is immoral in Montacute; what is crime among the multitude is only vice among the few.”

Benjamin Disraeli book Tancred

Tancred, Chapter 7.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.”

Benjamin Disraeli

1830s Variant: Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honorable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon Source: Reply to a taunt by Daniel O'Connell http://www.victorianweb.org/history/pms/dizzy.html Source: Early appearance in The Russian Mephistopheles, Hunterberg, Max, 105-106, 1909, Glasgow, John J. Rae https://archive.org/details/russianmephistop00huntiala/page/106/mode/2up,

“Before the civil war commenced, the United States of America were colonies, and we should not forget that such communities do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1863/feb/05/address-to-her-majesty-on-the-lords in the House of Commons (5 February 1863).

“Protection is not a principle, but an expedient.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

“When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Bk. IV, Ch. 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“That dense population in extreme distress inhabited an island where there was an established church which was not their church; and a territorial aristocracy, the richest of whom lived in distant capitals. Thus they had a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and, in addition, the weakest executive in the world. That was the Irish question.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1844/feb/16/state-of-ireland-adjourned-debate-fourth in the House of Commons (16 February 1844). 1840s

“The sense of existence is the greatest happiness.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Part 3, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

“If a man be gloomy, let him keep to himself. No one has a right to go croaking about society, or, what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book V, Chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831)

“But this principle of race is unfortunately 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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1849/feb/01/address-in-answer-to-the-speech in the House of Commons (1 February 1849). 1840s

“Manners are easy," said Coningsby, "and life is hard.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book 3, Chap. 4.
Books, Coningsby (1844)

“In politics nothing is contemptible.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

“Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Isaac D'Israeli, The Curiosities of Literature, "Literary Journals".
Misattributed, Isaac D'Israeli

“That is an apology, not an explanation; and apologies only account for that which they do not alter.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1871/jul/28/parliament-order-of-business in the House of Commons (28 July 1871).

“This is the third time that, in the course of six years, during which I have had the lead of the Opposition in the House of Commons, I have stormed the Treasury Benches: twice, fruitlessly, the third time with a tin kettle to my tail which rendered the race hopeless. You cannot, therefore, be surprised, that I am a little wearied of these barren victories, which like Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava, may be glorious but are certainly nothing more.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Letter to Lady Londonderry (22 February 1854), in Benjamin Disraeli, Letters: 1852-1856 (1997), p. 405.
1850s

“That is the fourth course, which in future I trust the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) will not forget. The right hon. Gentleman tells us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle precedents.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1845/apr/11/maynooth-college in the House of Commons (11 April 1845). 1840s

“Time is the great physician.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book 6, chapter 9.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)

“The democracy of America must not be confounded with the democracies of old Europe. It is not the scum of turbulent cities, nor is it a mere section of an excited middle class speculating in shares and calling it progress. It is a territorial democracy, if I may use that epithet without offending hon. Gentlemen opposite. Aristotle, who has taught us most of the wise things we know, never said a wiser thing than that the cultivators of the soil are the class least inclined to sedition and to violent courses.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1865/mar/13/defences-of-canada-colonel-jervois#column_1572 in the House of Commons (13 March 1865).

“It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech in the House of Lords (20 February 1877), cited 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. 994.

“Without tact you can learn nothing.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 61.

“The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 96. Compare: "The elegant simplicity of the three per cents", Lord Stowell, in Lives of the Lord Chancellors (Campbell), Vol. x, Chap. 212.