Quotes from Benjamin Disraeli

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

Religion is civilization, the highest.

Yes I am a Jew and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown land mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.

Having the courage to live within one's means is respectability.

All must respect those who respect themselves.

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed.

We can know nothing of humankind without knowing something of ourselves. Self-knowledge is the property of those people whose passions have their full play, but who ponder over their results.

The fruit of my tree of knowledge is plucked, and it is this: "Adventures are to the adventurous."

Eloquence is the child of knowledge. When a mind is full, like a wholesome river, it is also clear.

We live in age of prudence. The leaders of the people now generally follow.

The essence of education is the education of the body.

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation.

To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

In the hands of a genius, engineering turns to magic, philosophy becomes poetry, and science pure imagination.

The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble.

There are few faces that can afford to smile: a smile is sometimes bewitching, in general vapid, often a contortion.

Never argue. In society nothing must be; give only results. If any person differs from you, bow, and turn the conversation.

Nothing in life is more remarkable than the unnecessary anxiety which we endure, and generally create ourselves.

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 fervour.