Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881)
British politician, novelist, and essayist, serving twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth.
A dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.
Everything comes if a man will only wait.
Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.
"But they deserve their wealth," he added, "nobody grudges it to them. I declare when I was eating that truffle, I felt a glow about my heart that, if it were not indigestion, I think must have been gratitude; though that is an article I had not believed in.
They that touch pitch will be defiled.
Gentlemen, the Tory party, unless it is a national party, is nothing.
No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.
Success is the child of audacity.
There is no index of character so sure as the voice.
There can be no economy where there is no efficiency.
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.
It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England.
A consistent man believes in Destiny — a capricious man in Chance.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.
The danger at such a moment is that designing politicians may take advantage of such sublime sentiments and may apply them for the furtherance of their sinister ends. I do not think there is any language which can denounce too strongly conduct of this description. He who at such a moment would avail himself of such a commanding sentiment in order to obtain his own individual ends, suggesting a course which he may know to be injurious to the interests of the country, and not favourable to the welfare of mankind, is a man whose conduct no language can too strongly condemn. He outrages the principle of patriotism, which is the soul of free communities. He does more—he influences in the most injurious manner the common welfare of humanity. Such conduct, if it be pursued by any man at this moment, ought to be indignantly reprobated by the people of England; for, in the general havoc and ruin which it may bring about, it may, I think, be fairly described as worse than any of those Bulgarian atrocities which now occupy attention.
I suppose, to use our national motto, something will turn up.
That is the fourth course, which in future I trust the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) will not forget. The right hon. Gentleman tells us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle precedents.
Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it: he that fears otherwise, gives advantage to the danger.
Like all great travellers I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.