Benjamin Disraeli quotes

“Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“There is moderation even in excess.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“We cannot learn men from books.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“A precedent embalms a principle.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

“If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“A majority is always better than the best repartee.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

“I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“That fatal drollery called a representative government.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

“The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

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

— Benjamin Disraeli

“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.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.”

— Benjamin Disraeli

“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.”

— 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

“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.”

— Benjamin Disraeli