Benjamin Disraeli

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

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

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.

London is a roost for every bird.

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

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

Ah, Ireland... That damnable, delightful country, where everything that is right is the opposite of what it ought to be.

To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

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.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

Destiny is our will, and our will is nature.

To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.

The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.

Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow.

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.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

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

It shows you exactly how a star is formed; nothing else can be so pretty! A cluster of vapor, the cream of the milky way, a sort of celestial cheese, churned into light.

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

The unfortunate are always egotistical.

The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools.

Circumstances are beyond human control but our conduct is in our own power.

We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.

The view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the history of earth and of heaven.

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

Justice is truth in action.

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.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forgo an advantage.

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

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

A parsimony of words prodigal of sense.

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.

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

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

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

Free trade is not a principle, it is an expedient.

Judaism is not complete without Christianity and without Judaism, Christianity would not exist.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

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

I rather like bad wine one gets so bored with good wine.

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.

It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.

Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.

In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

A precedent embalms a principle.

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

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.

Genius, when young, is divine.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.

As for our majority... one is enough.

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.

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.

Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always questioning never learn anything.

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

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

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

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

Damn your principles! Stick to your party.

Be amusing never tell unkind stories above all never tell long ones.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

The profound thinker always suspects that he is superficial.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

All my successes have been built on my failures.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for truth.

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

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.

You must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

London is a roost for every bird

Success is the child of audacity.

Man is not the creature of circumstances circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents and man is more powerful than matter.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

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.

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.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.