Benjamin Disraeli Quotes

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

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

There is no index of character so sure as the voice.

A majority is always the best repartee.

Duty cannot exist without faith.

Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race.... All is race, there is no other truth.

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

"I rather like bad wine," said Mr. Mountchesney; "one gets so bored with good wine."

"So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." (Sidonia speaking)

What Art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern: the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men the useful has succeeded to the beautiful.. There are great truths to tell, if we had either the courage to announce them or the temper to receive them.

"Manners are easy," said Coningsby, "and life is hard."

[T]he landed interest... have not forgotten that they have been held up to public odium and reprobation by triumphant demagogues. They have not forgotten that their noble industry, which in the old days was considered the invention of gods and the occupation of heroes, has been stigmatised and denounced as an incubus upon English enterprise. They have not forgotten that even the very empire that was created by the valour and the devotion of their fathers has been held up to public hatred, as a cumbersome and ensanguined machinery, only devised to pamper the luxury and feed the rapacity of our territorial houses... [I]t would be just as well if you recollected that the fathers of these men were the founders of your liberties; and that, before this time, their ancestors have bled for justice. Rely upon it that the blood of these men who refused to pay ship-money is not to be trifled with.

But he has left us the legacy of heroes—the memory of his great name, and the inspiration of his great example.

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

The office of leader of the Conservative party in the H[ouse] of C[ommons], at the present day, is to uphold the aristocratic settlement of this country. That is the only question at stake, however manifold may be the forms wh[ich] it assumes in public discussion.