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.

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

Travel teaches toleration.

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

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

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

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

War is never a solution it is an aggravation.

Success is the child of audacity.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

Great countries are those that produce great people.

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

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

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

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

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

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

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

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness.

Never complain and never explain.

Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

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

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

There is no gambling like politics.

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

We cannot learn men from books.

In a progressive country change is constant change is inevitable.

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

There is no education like adversity.

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

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

Change is inevitable. Change is constant.

Finality is not the language of politics.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

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

Assassination has never changed the history of the world.

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

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

Silence is the mother of truth.

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

I say that justice is truth in action.

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

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

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

Justice is truth in action.

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

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

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

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

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

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

Duty cannot exist without faith.

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

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

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