Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

Benjamin Disraeli

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: Dec 21, 1804
  • Died: Apr 19, 1881

Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, FRS, was a British Conservative politician, writer and aristocrat who twice served as Prime Minister. He played a central role in the creation of the modern Conservative Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is, as at 2014, the only British Prime Minister of Jewish birth.

Disraeli was born in London. His father left Judaism after a dispute at his synagogue; young Benjamin became an Anglican at age 12. After several unsuccessful attempts, Disraeli entered the House of Commons in 1837. When the Conservatives gained power in 1841, Disraeli was given no office by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. In 1846, Peel split the party over his proposal to repeal the Corn Laws, which imposed a tariff on imported grain. Disraeli clashed with Peel in the Commons.

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

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

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

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

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

Silence is the mother of truth.

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

Never complain and never explain.

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

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

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

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

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

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

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

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.

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

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

There is no gambling like politics.

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

Justice is truth in action.

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

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

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

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

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

The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

Success is the child of audacity.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

Travel teaches toleration.

Finality is not the language of politics.

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

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

Duty cannot exist without faith.

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

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

In a progressive country change is constant change is inevitable.

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

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

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

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

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

There is no education like adversity.

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

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

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

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

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

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

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

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

I say that justice is truth in action.

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

Great countries are those that produce great people.

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.

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

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

War is never a solution it is an aggravation.

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

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

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

We cannot learn men from books.

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

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

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

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

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

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