Quotes By Benjamin Disraeli

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

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

We cannot learn men from books.

Never take anything for granted.

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.

There can be economy only where there is efficiency.

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

Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful.

Genius, when young, is divine.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Little things affect little minds.

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard.

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

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

You can tell the strength of a nation by the women behind its men.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

London is a modern Babylon.

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