Benjamin Disraeli
What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.
Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission.
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.
The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.
The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.
My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.
A precedent embalms a principle.
It is easier to be critical than correct.
Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.
Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
It is knowledge that influences and equalizes the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.
Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.
Change is inevitable. In a progressive country change is constant.
Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.
Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.
As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.
No government can be long secure without formidable opposition.
A man can know nothing of mankind without knowing something of himself. Self-knowledge is the property of that man whose passions have their full play, but who ponders over their results.
The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.
Ignorance never settles a question.
The hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
We make our fortunes and call them fate.
The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.
In a progressive country change is constant; ...change... is inevitable.
He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet.
Justice is truth in action.
At present the peace of the world has been preserved, not by statesmen, but by capitalists.
The secret of success is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.
Nurture your mind with great thoughts for you will never go any higher than what you think.
The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.
