Benjamin disraeli quotes

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

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.

There is no waste of time like making excuses.

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

Great countries are those that produce great people.

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

Silence is the mother of truth.

To achieve what you want, you have to be stronger than those around you

Sir, I shall not defeat you - I shall transcend you.

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.

There is no education like adversity.

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

Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.

Whenever you see a man who is successful in society, try to discover what makes him pleasing, and if possible adopt his system.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

All is race; there is no other truth ,and every race must fall which carelessly suffers its blood to become mixed.

All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that make us think forever. There are men whose phrases are oracles; who condense in one sentence the secrets of life; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character or illustrates an existence.

What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment.

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

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure.

A man's fate is his own temper.

There is no greater sin than to be trop prononce.

Sir, very few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may arrive at that destination I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.

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.

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

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

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

Man is a being born to believe. And if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of truth to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own imagination.

Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.

I do not like giving advice: it is incurring an unnecessary responsibility.

We can know nothing of humankind without knowing something of ourselves. Self-knowledge is the property of those people whose passions have their full play, but who ponder over their results.

The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.

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

Success is the child of audacity.

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

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented.

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 fervour.

Success is a product of unremitting attention to purpose.

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

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

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

The art of conversation is to be prompt without being stubborn, to refute without argument, and to clothe great matters in a motley garb.

All my successes have been built on my failures.

There is no diplomacy like silence.

There are some silent people who are more interesting than the best talkers.

Rothschild is the Lord and Master of the money markets of the world, and of course virtually Lord and Master of everything else. He literally held the revenues of Southern Italy in pawn, and Monarchs and Ministers of all countries courted his advice and were guided by his suggestions.

Luck is what a capricious man believes in.

I was told that the privileged and the people formed two nations.

Everything comes if a man will only wait.

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

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

A great person is one who affects the mind of their generation.

The greatest of all evils is a weak government

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

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write about it.

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

What appear to be calamities are often the sources of fortune.

Mr Speaker, I withdraw my statement that half the cabinet are asses - half the cabinet are not asses.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

A realist is a man who insists on making the same mistakes his grandfather did.

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

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.

Never argue. In society nothing must be; give only results. If any person differs from you, bow, and turn the conversation.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts

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

Having the courage to live within one's means is respectability.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens.

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

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

Difficulties melt away under tact.

There is no wisdom like frankness.

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

Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few.

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.

If you don't believe in magic, then you can't believe in reality.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

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

Never take anything for granted.

As a rule, man is a fool. When it's hot, he wants it cool; When its cool, he wants it hot. Always wanting, what is not.

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

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

He who gains time gains everything.

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Perseverance and tact are the two great qualities most valuable for all those who would climb, but especially for those who have to step out of the crowd.

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.

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

If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy. You will in due season have great impatience of public burdens, combined in due season with great increase of public expenditure. You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason; and you will in due season submit to peace ignominiously sought and ignominiously obtained, which will diminish your authority and perhaps endanger your independence. You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.

When men are young, they want experience and when they have gained experience, they want energy.

All is mystery; but he is a slave who will not struggle to penetrate the dark veil.

Money is power, and rare are the heads that can withstand the possession of great power.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

In politics, nothing is contemptible.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Never complain and never explain.

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

Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which we endure, and generally create ourselves.

The tone and tendency of liberalism...is to attack the institutions of the country under the name of reform and to make war on the manners and customs of the people under the pretext of progress.

Rothschild is the lord and master of the money markerts of the world and virtually lord and master of everything else.

An obedient wife commands her husband.

The difference between talent and genius is this: while the former usually develops some special branch of our faculties, the latter commands them all. When the former is combined with tact, it is often more than a match for the latter.

Ignorance never settles a question.

The Jews are a nervous people. Nineteen centuries of Christian love have taken a toll.

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.' That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.

Quit the world, and the world forgets you.

Nature has given us two ears but only one mouth.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

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.

The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.

Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.

People are defeated by easy, victorious and cheap successes more than by adversity.

As a rule, he or she who has the most information will have the greatest success in life.

It is useless to deny, and impossible to conceal, that a great part of Europe, the whole of Italy and France, and a great portion of Germany, to say nothing of other countries - is covered with a network of these secret societies, just as the superfices of the Earth are being covered with railroads.

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

Variety is the mother of Enjoyment.

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

Little things affect little minds.

Truth travels slowly, but it will reach even you in time.

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

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission.

Great men never require experience.