Benjamin Disraeli
Poverty has its duties as well as its rights.Collection: Rights
The eyes of the social herd, who always observe little things, and generally form from them their opinions of great affairs.Collection: Eye
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.Collection: Time
Tobacco is the tomb of love.Collection: Smoking
Female friendships are of rapid growth.Collection: Friendship
The English nation is never so great as in adversity.Collection: Adversity
The age does not believe in great men, because it does not possess any.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Pain
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.Collection: Country
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.Collection: Girl
Principle is ever my motto, no expediency.Collection: Principles
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.Collection: Funny
It is remarkable that when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus!Collection: Science
Lady Lytton rules her husband, but that I suppose is always the case where marriages are what is called 'happy'.Collection: Marriage
You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at the scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.Collection: Country
The right hon. Gentleman [Sir Robert Peel] caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes.Collection: Clothes
In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbors.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Strong
Youth is the trustee of prosperity.Collection: Inspirational
The British people, being subject to fogs, require grave statesmen.Collection: Fog
The Egremonts had never said anything that was remembered, or done anything that could be recalled.Collection: Done
We have legalized confiscation, consecrated sacrilege, and condoned high treason.Collection: Treason
No, it is better not. She will only ask me to take a message to Albert.Collection: Messages
All power is a trust, that we are accountable for its exercise.Collection: Trust
Of all unfortunate men one of the unhappiest is a middling author endowed with too lively a sensibility for criticism.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Reading
There are so many plans, so many schemes, and so many reasons why there should be neither plans nor schemes.Collection: Reason Why
Without dancing you can never attain a perfectly graceful carriage, which is of the highest importance in life.Collection: Dancing
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.Collection: Men
The affections are the children of ignorance; when the horizon of our experience expands, and models multiply, love and admiration imperceptibly vanish.Collection: Children
He who anticipates his century is generally persecuted when living, and always pilfered when dead.Collection: Life
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.Collection: Food
I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar.Collection: Talking
Nature is more powerful than education; time will develop everything.Collection: Time
More pernicious nonsense was never devised by man than treaties of commerce.Collection: Men
Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.Collection: Passion
Knowledge must be gained by ourselves. Mankind may supply us with facts; but the results, even if they agree with previous ones, must be the work of our own minds.Collection: Wisdom
When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.Collection: Men
Beauty and health are the chief sources of happiness.Collection: Beauty
Silence often expresses 'more powerfully than speech the verdict and judgment of society.Collection: Silence
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.Collection: Passion
There is scarcely any popular tenet more erroneous than that which holds that when time is slow, life is dull.Collection: Dull
The art of governing mankind by deceiving them.Collection: Art
In the hands of a genius, engineering turns to magic, philosophy becomes poetry, and science pure imagination.Collection: Philosophy
The indulgence in grief is a blunder.Collection: Grief
Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.Collection: Fear
We make our own fortune and call it destiny.Collection: Destiny
In politics experiments means revolutions.Collection: Mean
The feeling of satiety, almost inseparable from large possessions, is a surer cause of misery than ungratified desires.Collection: Feelings