Quotes from Benjamin Disraeli

You asked me where I generally lived. In my workshop [i.e. in his study] in the mornings and always in the library in the evening. Books are companions even if you don't open them.

Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation

If Gladstone fell in the Thames, that would be a misfortune. But if someone fished him out again, that would be a calamity.

Grief is the agony of an instant: the indulgence of grief is the blunder of life.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.

Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination.

He who gains time gains everything.

Every woman should marry ... and no man.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

I feel a very unusual sensation - if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.

Man is created for a purpose; the object of his existence is to perfect himself. Man is imperfect by nature, because if nature had made him perfect he would have had no wants; and it is only by supplying his wants that utility can be developed. The development of utility is therefore the object of our being, and the attainment of this great end the cause of our existence.

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

The poor are very well off, at least the agricultural poor, very well off indeed. Their incomes are certain, that is a great point, and they have no cares, no anxieties; they always have a resource, they always have the House. People without cares do not require as much food as those whose life entails anxieties. See how long they live!

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

England is governed not by logic but by parliament.

There is no wisdom like frankness.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

There is no act of treachery or mean-ness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour

Books are companions even if you don't open them.

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous.

Man must ever be the slave of routine: but in old days it was a routine of great thoughts, and now it is a routine of little ones.

It has been my lot to have found myself in many distant lands. I have never been in one without finding a Scotchman, and I never found a Scotchman who was not head of the poll.