Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.
Benjamin Disraeli
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Benjamin Disraeli quotes
In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.
Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.
We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.
It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.
No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.
One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
But what minutes! Count them by sensation, and not by calendars, and each moment is a day.
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.
A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance.
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 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.
A precedent embalms a principle.
A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.
Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.
An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.
As for our majority... one is enough.
Assassination has never changed the history of the world.
Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.
Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.
Change is inevitable. Change is constant.
Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.
Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.
Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.
Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.
Damn your principles! Stick to your party.
Despair is the conclusion of fools.
Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
Duty cannot exist without faith.
Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.
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.
Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.
Fear makes us feel our humanity.
Finality is not the language of politics.
Frank and explicit - that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.
Great countries are those that produce great people.
Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress.
He traces the steam engine all the way back to the tea kettle.
He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
His shortcoming is his long staying.
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.
I feel a very unusual sensation - if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
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 never deny. I never contradict. I sometimes forget.
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.
I say that justice is truth in action.
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.
If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that I suppose would be a calamity.
If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
In politics nothing is contemptible.
Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Justice is truth in action.
King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.
Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
Little things affect little minds.
London is a roost for every bird.
Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.
Man is only great when he acts from passion.
Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.
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.
Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.
Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.
Never complain and never explain.
Never take anything for granted.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.
No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.
Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.
Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.
Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
On the education of the people of this country the fate of the country depends.
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."
Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People.
Protection is not a principle but an expedient.
Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.
Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
Silence is the mother of truth.
Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.
Success is the child of audacity.
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.
Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.
The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.
The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind.
The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
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.
The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame, -a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others.
The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.
The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
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.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.
The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.
The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.
The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.
The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.
The question is this - Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories.
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.
The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools.
The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.
The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.
The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
There can be economy only where there is efficiency.
There is moderation even in excess.
There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.
There is no education like adversity.
There is no gambling like politics.
There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.
There is no index of character so sure as the voice.
They that touch pitch will be defiled.
Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.
To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.
To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them.
To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.
Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.
Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.
We cannot learn men from books.
We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.
We moralize among ruins.
We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.
What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.
What usually comes first is the contract.
What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.
When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.
Where knowledge ends, religion begins.
William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.
Without publicity there can be no public support, and without public support every nation must decay.
Without tact you can learn nothing.
Worry - a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray.
You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.
Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.
Youth is the trustee of prosperity.
An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.
War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.
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