Top 564 Quotes & Sayings by Benjamin Disraeli - Page 8

It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.

You have despoiled churches. You have threatened every corporation and endowment in the country. You have examined into everybodys affairs. You have criticised every profession and vexed every trade. No one is certain of his property, and nobody knows what duties he may have to perform to-morrow. This is the policy of confiscation as compared with that of concurrent endowment.

The age does not believe in great men, because it does not possess any.

Consider Ireland.... You have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world. That is the Irish Question.

The feathered arrow of satire has oft been wet with the heart's blood of its victims.

An amateur may not be an artist, though an artist should be an amateur.

Taste, when once obtained, may be said to be no acquiring faculty, and must remain stationary; but knowledge is of perpetual growth and has infinite demands. Taste, like an artificial canal, winds through a beautiful country, but its borders are confined and its term is limited. Knowledge navigates the ocean, and is perpetually on voyages of discovery.

An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.

I see before me the statue of a celebrated minister, who said that confidence was a plant of slow growth. But I believe, however gradual may be the growth of confidence, that of credit requires still more time to arrive at maturity.

Whatever they did, the Elysians were careful never to be vehement.

I think that an author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children.

I look upon parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly one most suited to England. But without the discipline of political connection, animated by the principle of private honor, I feel certain that a popular assembly would sink before the power or the corruption of a minister.

Principle is ever my motto, no expediency.

Fame has eagle wings, and yet she mounts not so high as man's desires.

The girl of the period sets up to be natural, and is only rude; mistakes insolence for innocence; says everything that comes first to her lips, and thinks she is gay when she is only giddy.

A beautiful hand is an excellent thing in woman; it is a charm that never palls; and better than all, it is a means of fascinating that never disappears.

Why, I say, that to tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection; it is plunder, and I entirely disclaim it; but I ask you to protect the rights and interests of labour generally in the first place, by allowing no free imports from countries which meet you with countervailing duties; and, in the second place, with respect to agricultural produce, to compensate the soil for the burdens from which other classes are free by an equivalent duty. This is my view of what is called "protection."

Departure should be sudden.

There are few positions less inspiriting than those of a discomfited party.

O Music! Miraculous art! A blast of thy trumpet and millions rush forward to die; a peal of thy organ and uncounted nations sink down to pray.

Party is organized opinion.

Some will read only old books, as if there were no valuable truths to be discovered in modern publications: others will only read new books, as if some valuable truths are not among the old. Some will not read a book because they know the author: others . . . would also read the man.

I am bound to furnish my antagonists with arguments, but not with comprehension.

She is an excellent creature, but she can never remember which came first, the Greeks or the Romans.

It is the lot of man to suffer.

Doubt is an element of criticism, and the tendency of criticism is necessarily skeptical.

'A sound Conservative government,' said Taper, musingly. 'I understand: Tory men and Whig measures.'

The conduct of men depends upon their temperament, not upon a bunch of musty maxims.

Certainly Manchester is the most wonderful city of modern times!

Generally speaking, among sensible persons, it would seem that a rich man deems that friend a sincere one who does not want to borrow his money; while, among the less favored with fortune's gifts, the sincere friend is generally esteemed to be the individual who is ready to lend it.

Coquettes are, but too rare. It is a career that requires great abilities, infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. 'T is the coquette who provides all the amusements,--suggests the riding-party, plans the picnic, gives and guesses charades, acts them. She is the stirring element amid the heavy congeries of social atoms,--the soul of the house, the salt of the banquet.

What is wanted in architecture, as in so many things, is a man. ... One suggestion might be made-no profession in England has done its duty until it has furnished a victim. ... Even our boasted navy never achieved a great victory until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged? Terror has its inspiration, as well as competition.

I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole!

The originality of a subject is in its treatment.

He who anticipates his century is generally persecuted when living, and always pilfered when dead.

No, it is better not. She will only ask me to take a message to Albert.

The affections are the children of ignorance; when the horizon of our experience expands, and models multiply, love and admiration imperceptibly vanish.

And it is a singular truth that, though a man may shake off national habits, accent, manner of thinking, style of dress,--though he may become perfectly identified with another nation, and speak its language well, perhaps better than his own,--yet never can he succeed in changing his handwriting to a foreign style.

Nature is more powerful than education; time will develop everything.

I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.

That soul-subduing sentiment, harshly called flirtation, which is the spell of a country house.

The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled.

A person's fate is their own temper.

Is man an ape or an angel? Now I am on the side of the angels.

The canter is a cure for every evil.

My idea of an acceptable person is someone that is ready to accept my ideas.

No affection and a great brain, these are the people to command the world.

Apologies only account for that which they do not alter.

You must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession.

A good eater must be a good man; for a good eater must have a good digestion, and a good digestion depends upon a good conscience.

All power is a trust, that we are accountable for its exercise.

Ah, Ireland... That damnable, delightful country, where everything that is right is the opposite of what it ought to be.

What we call the heart is a nervous sensation, like shyness, which gradually disappears in society. It is fervent in the nursery, strong in the domestic circle, tumultuous at school.

A practical man is a man who practices the errors of his forefathers.

No enemy is indeed so terrible as a man of genius.

Youth is the trustee of prosperity.

If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,-and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking, - the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.

Christianity is completed Judaism or it is nothing.

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.

We have legalized confiscation, consecrated sacrilege, and condoned high treason.