Benjamin Disraeli's Quotes

I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment.

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.

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.

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

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.

Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People.

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

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Frank and explicit - that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.

Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

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

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

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

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

There is no education like adversity.

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

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

A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

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

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.

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.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

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

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

Justice is truth in action.

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

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

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

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

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

Adventures are to the adventurous.

As for our majority... one is enough.

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

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

Damn your principles! Stick to your party.

Duty cannot exist without faith.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Genius, when young, is divine.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

In politics nothing is contemptible.

London is a roost for every bird.

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

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

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

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

Without tact you can learn nothing.

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.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

A precedent embalms a principle.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

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

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

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

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.

London is a modern Babylon.

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

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

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

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.