Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

Quotes

• Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

• 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.

• 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.

• It is easier to be critical than correct.

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

• Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

• Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

• 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 secret of success is constancy of purpose.

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

• When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

• The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.

• What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.

• The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.

• The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

• The more extensive a man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

• 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.

• The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

• Ignorance never settles a question.