Benjamin Disraeli (1804 – 1881)
British politician, novelist, and essayist, serving twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
It is knowledge that influences and equalises the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
London is a modern Babylon.
Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics.
That fatal drollery called a representative government.
The harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.
The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.
The noble lord in this case, as in so many others, first destroys his opponent, and then destroys his own position afterwards. The noble lord is the Prince Rupert of parliamentary discussion: his charge is resistless, but when he returns from the pursuit he always finds his camp in the possession of the enemy.
The sweet simplicity of the three per cents.
Man is not a rational animal. He is only truly good or great when he acts from passion.
He has not a single redeeming defect.
The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.
I have brought myself, by long meditation, to the conviction that a human being with a settled purpose must accomplish it, and that nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfilment.
In the character of the victim [Lincoln], and even in the accessories of his last moments, there is something so homely and innocent that it takes the question, as it were, out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy—it touches the heart of nations and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind.
A very remarkable people the Zulus: they defeat our generals, they convert our bishops, they have settled the fate of a great European dynasty.
Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.
Free trade is not a principle; it is an expedient.
Despair is the conclusion of fools.
Great services are not cancelled by one act or by one single error.
Time is the great physician.