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Benjamin Disraeli Quotes
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Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, was a British politician of the Conservative Party who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is the only British prime minister to have been of Jewish birth. He was also a novelist, publishing works of fiction even as prime minister.

Disraeli was born in Bloomsbury, then a part of Middlesex. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; young Benjamin became an Anglican at the age of 12. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. In 1846 the Prime Minister at the time, Sir Robert Peel, split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which involved ending the tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the House of Commons. Disraeli became a major figure in the party. When Lord Derby, the party leader, thrice formed governments in the 1850s and 1860s, Disraeli served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons.

Upon Derby's retirement in 1868, Disraeli became Prime Minister briefly before losing that year's general election. He returned to the Opposition, before leading the party to winning a majority in the 1874 general election. He maintained a close friendship with Queen Victoria, who in 1876 appointed him Earl of Beaconsfield. Disraeli's second term was dominated by the Eastern Question—the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia, to gain at its expense. Disraeli arranged for the British to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company . In 1878, faced with Russian victories against the Ottomans, he worked at the Congress of Berlin to obtain peace in the Balkans at terms favourable to Britain and unfavourable to Russia, its longstanding enemy. This diplomatic victory over Russia established Disraeli as one of Europe's leading statesmen.

World events thereafter moved against the Conservatives. Controversial wars in Afghanistan and South Africa undermined his public support. He angered British farmers by refusing to reinstitute the Corn Laws in response to poor harvests and cheap imported grain. With Gladstone conducting a massive speaking campaign, his Liberals defeated Disraeli's Conservatives at the 1880 general election. In his final months, Disraeli led the Conservatives in Opposition. He had throughout his career written novels, beginning in 1826, and he published his last completed novel, Endymion, shortly before he died at the age of 76. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. December 1804 – 19. April 1881
Benjamin Disraeli photo
Benjamin Disraeli: 306   quotes 320   likes

Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

“You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when Gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1848/aug/30/business-of-the-session in the House of Commons (30 August 1848).

Hope , Country

“I rather like bad wine," said Mr. Mountchesney; "one gets so bored with good wine.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book 1, chapter 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845)

Wine

“An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 37.

Country

“I think the author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech at banquet given by the city of Glasgow to Disraeli on his inauguration as Lord Rector of Glasgow University (19 November 1870), cited in Wit and Wisdom of Benjamin Disraeli, Collected from his Writings and Speeches (1881), p. 16.

Children , Books , Thinking

“A series of congratulatory regrets.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Lord Hartington's Resolutions on the Berlin Treaty (30 July 1878).

“The movement of the middle classes for the abolition of slavery was virtuous, but it was not wise. It was an ignorant movement. It showed a want of knowledge both of the laws of commerce and the stipulations of treaties; and it has alike ruined the colonies and aggravated the slave trade…The history of the abolition of slavery by the English and its consequences, would be a narrative of ignorance, injustice, blundering, waste, and havoc, not easily paralleled in the history of mankind.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Lord George Bentinck: A Political Biography (1852), pp. 324-325.
1850s

Law , History , Knowledge

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

Benjamin Disraeli

Cited in Gwendolen Cecil, Life of Robert Marquis of Salisbury: 1868-1880, Vol. 2. (1921), p. 205.
Sourced but undated

Men , Courage

“When a man fell into his anecdotage, it was a sign for him to retire.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 28.

“I say that there are two systems of policy to apply to the management of what is commonly called the Eastern question, but which resolves itself into the geographical question, namely, the possession of that site which commands the empire of the world—the city of Constantinople. There is that school of opinions which I call British opinions, advocated by the noble Lord the Leader of this House (Lord J. Russell) and the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Viscount Palmerston), who believe in the vitality of Turkey, that it may remain an independent and even a progressive country, and form a powerful and sufficient barrier against the encroachment of Russia. There is the other school, which I call the school of Russian polities, that believes that Turkey is exhausted; that all we can do is, by gradually enfranchising the Christian population, to prevent, when its fall takes place, perfect anarchy, and contemplates the possibility of Russia occupying the Bosphorus.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1854/mar/31/war-with-russia-the-queens-message in the House of Commons (21 March 1854).
1850s

World , School , Home , Question

“Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book 6, chapter 12.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Henrietta Temple (1837)

Passion , Animals

“The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 17.

Science

“Beware of endeavouring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are fearful odds.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book I, Chapter 10.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Vivian Grey (1826)

Fear

“Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible, that it was doubted whether, after all, the young orator really did lose his virginity.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Book I, Chapter 6.
Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831)

“In the great struggle between popular principles and liberal opinions, which is the characteristic of our age, I hope ever to be found on the side of the people, and of the Institutions, of England. It is our Institutions that have made us free, and can alone keep us so; by the bulwark which they offer to the insidious encroachments of a convenient, yet enervating, system of centralisation, which, if left unchecked, will prove fatal to the national character.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Address to the electors of Buckinghamshire (25 May 1847), 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. 837.
1840s

People , Age , Hope

“Now I must tell that nothing will induce me to support the 3 F's—three fiddlesticks. During a long parliamentary life, and long before I was in Parliament, I have been profoundly convinced, that the greatness and character of this country depended on our landed tenure. All the rest, I look upon, and have ever looked upon, as "leather and prunella". I fear the pass is sold… I have formally, and even solemnly, warned the house in wh[ich] I now sit, that the landed system of this country would be attacked and invaded by the revolutionary party.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Letter to Lord Salisbury (27 December 1880), 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. 1468.
1880s

Life , Fear , Support , Housing

“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

Time , Victory , Housing

“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

Future , Tea , Forgetting

“Time is the great physician.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Time

“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).

Democracy

“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.

People , Feeling , Question , Parting

“Without tact you can learn nothing.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Learning

“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.

“A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Upon hearing of the death of Napoléon, Prince Imperial of the House of Bonaparte in Africa (1879); cited in James Anthony Froude, Lord Beaconsfield (1890), p. 213.

Fate , People

“None are so interested in maintaining the institutions of the country as the working classes. The rich and the powerful will not find much difficulty under any circumstances in maintaining their rights, but the privileges of the people can only be defended and secured by popular institutions.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to a working men's club (1867), 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. 297.

People , Country

“He is so vain that he wants to figure in history as the settler of all the great questions; but a Parliamentary constitution is not favorable to such ambitions; things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Lord John Manners, referring to the tactics of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel (17 December 1846), cited in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (Vol. 2) (1913), p. 337-338.

History , Question , Personality

“Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

“In politics nothing is contemptible.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

“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

War , Fear

“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)

“The sense of existence is the greatest happiness.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Sense , Happiness

“He was fresh and full of faith that "something would turn up."”

Benjamin Disraeli

Bk. III, Ch. 6.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

Faith

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Life

“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

World , Question , Distant

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Truth , Silence

“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

“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).

War , Communication , Forgetting

“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,

“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)

“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

“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

“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

“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)

“At present the peace of the world has been preserved, not by statesmen, but by capitalists.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Letter to Mrs. Sarah Brydges Willyams (17 October 1863), 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. 73

World , Peace

“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.
Sourced but undated

“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

“A man's fate is his own temper.”

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Fate

“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

“If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.”

Benjamin Disraeli

Attributed to Edmund Burke, to William Gerard Hamilton, to George Bernard Shaw, to John F. Kennedy (who quoted it) and to Benjamin Disraeli, it was actually said by Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland in a speech in the House of Commons on 1641-11-22.
Misattributed

Change

“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).