Benjamin Disraeli citations (307 citations, Page 5)

Benjamin Disraeli: 307 citations0 J'aime

Benjamin Disraeli Citations

“C'est une époque romanesque. Les trônes s'effondrent, les couronnes sont offertes comme dans un conte de fées, et les personnes les plus puissantes du monde, hommes et femmes, étaient il y a quelques années des aventuriers, des exilés, des demi-mondaines. Vive la bagatelle!”

Benjamin Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli: Citations en anglais

“I remember—the interruption of the hon. Gentleman reminds me of the words of a great writer, who said that "Grace was beauty in action." Sir, I say that justice is truth in action. Truth should animate an opposition, and I hope it does animate this opposition.;”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1851/feb/11/agricultural-distress in the House of Commons (2 February 1851). <br class="br">1850s

“Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race.… All is race, there is no other truth.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Bk. I, Ch. 13.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace, but a peace, I hope, with honour which may satisfy our Sovereign, and tend to the welfare of the country.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: From the window of 10 Downing Street, after arriving from Dover (16 July 1878), quoted in 'Return Of Lord Beaconsfield And Lord Salisbury', The Times (17 July 1878), p. 5.

“That fatal drollery called a representative government.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Bk. II, Ch. 13.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Tancred (1847)

“This war represents the German Revolution, a greater political event than the French Revolution of last century — I don't say a greater, or as great, a social event. What its social consequences may be are in the future. Not a single principle in the management of our foreign affairs, accepted by all statesmen for guidance up to six months ago, any longer exists. There is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away. You have a new world, new influences at work, new and unknown objects and dangers with which to cope. … The balance of power has been entirely destroyed, and the country which suffers most, and feels the effects of this great change most, is England.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1871/feb/09/address-to-her-majesty-on-her-most in the House of Commons (9 February 1871) on the Franco-Prussian War which led to German unification.

“No one, I think, can deny that the depression of the agricultural interest is excessive. Though I can recall periods of suffering, none of them have ever equalled the present in its instances. … the agricultural interest is suffering from a succession of bad harvest, accompanied, for the first time, by extremely low prices. That is a remarkable circumstance that has never before occurred—a combination that has never before been encountered. In old days, when we had a bad harvest we had also the somewhat dismal compensation of higher prices; but now, when the harvests are bad the prices are lower rather than higher…nor is it open to doubt that foreign competition has exercised a most injurious influence on the agricultural interests of the country. The country, however, was perfectly warned that if we made a great revolution in our industrial system, that was one of the consequences that would accrue. I may mention that the great result of the returns we possess is this, that the immense importations of foreign agricultural produce have been vastly in excess of what the increased demands of our population actually require, and that is why the low prices are maintained…That is to a great degree the cause of this depression.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech in the House of Lords on the state of agriculture (28 March 1879), reported in The Times (29 March 1879), p. 8.
1870s

“The harebrained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech, Guildhall, London (1878-11-09).
1870s

“Real politics are the possession and distribution of power.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 71 .

“We have brought a peace, and we trust we have brought a peace with honour, and I trust that that will now be followed by the prosperity of the country.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech at Dover, England after arriving from the Congress of Berlin (16 July 1878), quoted in 'Return Of Lord Beaconsfield And Lord Salisbury', The Times (17 July 1878), p. 5.

“There is no gambling like politics.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 82.

“London owes everything to its press: it owes as much to its press as it does to its being the seat of government and the law.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech at the Printing Trade Festival (1845).
1840s

“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

This comes from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, part 1, chapter 1.
Misattributed

“I am dead: dead, but in the Elysian fields.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Remark to Lord Aberdare on being welcomed to the House of Lords (1876), cited by Stanley Weintraub, Disraeli: A Biography (1993), p. 563.

“The divine right of kings may have been a plea for feeble tyrants; but the divine right of government is the keystone of human progress, and without it governments sink into police, and a nation is degraded into a mob.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Preface.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870)

“What Art was to the ancient world, Science is to the modern: the distinctive faculty. In the minds of men the useful has succeeded to the beautiful. …There are great truths to tell, if we had either the courage to announce them or the temper to receive them.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Book 4, Chap. 1.
Books, Coningsby (1844)

“No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Theory held by Disraeli, cited in Sir William Fraser, Disraeli and his Day (1891), p. 142.
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“Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1859/feb/28/leave in the House of Commons (28 February 1859). <br class="br">1850s

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

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Benjamin Disraeli

Part 5, Chapter 10.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

“The characteristic of the present age is a craving credulity.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech at Oxford Diocesan Conference (25 November 1864), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 105.

“Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech in the Guildhall, London (9 November 1866), quoted in The Times (10 November 1866), p. 9
1860s

“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.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 26.

“I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 30.

“The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Actually a line from Martin Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy.
Misattributed

“Sir, very few people reach posterity. Who amongst us may arrive at that destination I presume not to vaticinate. Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those gentlemen who reach posterity are not much more numerous than the planets.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/jan/22/address-in-answer-to-the-speech in the House of Commons (22 January 1846). <br class="br">1840s

“We are the children of the gods, and are never more the slaves of circumstance than when we deem ourselves their masters. What may next happen in the dazzling farce of life, the Fates only know.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Undated letter to Rosina Bulwer Lytton, cited in Andre Maurois, Disraeli: A Picture of the Victorian Age (1927), p. 114.
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“"As for that," said Waldenshare, "sensible men are all of the same religion."
"Pray, what is that?" inquired the Prince.
"Sensible men never tell."”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Endymion (1880), Ch. 81. An anecdote is related of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper (1621–1683), who, in speaking of religion, said, "People differ in their discourse and profession about these matters, but men of sense are really but of one religion." To the inquiry of "What religion?" the Earl said, "Men of sense never tell it", reported in Burnet, History of my own Times, vol. i. p. 175, note (edition 1833).

“Since the settlement of [the] Constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honour.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Speech to the Conservatives of Manchester (3 April 1872) on the monarchy, quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 527.

“The most distinguishing feature, or, at least, one of the most distinguishing features, of the great change effected in 1832 was that those who effected it at once abolished all the franchises as ancient as those of the Baronage of England; and, while they abolished them, they offered and proposed no substitute. The discontent upon the subject of representation which afterwards more or less pervaded our society dates from that period, and that discontent, all will admit, has ceased. It was terminated by the Act of Parliamentary Reform of 1867-8. That act was founded on a confidence that the great body of the people of this country were "Conservative". I use the word in its purest and loftiest sense. I mean that the people of England, and especially the working classes of England, are proud of belonging to a great country, and wish to maintain its greatness— that they are proud of belonging to an Imperial country, and are resolved to maintain, if they can, the empire of England— that they believe, on the whole, that the greatness and the empire of England are to be attributed to the ancient institutions of this country… There are people who may be, or who at least affect to be, working men, and who, no doubt, have a certain influence with a certain portion of the metropolitan working class, who talk Jacobinism… I say with confidence that the great body of the working class of England utterly repudiate such sentiments. They have no sympathy with them. They are English to the core. They repudiate cosmopolitan principles. They adhere to national principles. They are for maintaining the greatness of the kingdom and the empire, and they are proud of being subjects of our Sovereign and members of such an Empire. Well, then, as regards the political institutions of this country, the maintenance of which is one of the chief tenets of the Tory party, so far as I can read public opinion, the feeling of the nation is in accordance with the Tory party.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Speech at banquet of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations, Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), cited in "Mr. Disraeli at Sydenham," The Times (25 June 1872), p. 8.
1870s

“The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Book II, Chapter 5.
Books, Coningsby (1844), The Young Duke (1831)

“This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.”

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Benjamin Disraeli

Source: Referring to Frederick Temple, letter to Queen Victoria (4 November 1868), cited in The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2nd series) (1926), ed. George Earle Buckle, p. 550.