Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Action)

The disappointment of manhood succeeds the delusion of youth. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Age and Aging)

Youth is a blunder, manhood is a struggle and old age a regret. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Age and Aging)

It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Agents)

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Agreement)

Coalitions though successful have always found this, that their triumph has been brief. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Alliances)

Amusement to an observing mind is study. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Amusement)

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Anecdotes)

Assassination has never changed the history of the world. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Assassination)

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Biography)

Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Books - Reading)

Nine-tenths of the existing books are nonsense and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Books - Reading)

The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Bores and Boredom)

Frank and explicit -- that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Candor)

Candor is the brightest gem of criticism. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Candor)

There is no wisdom like frankness. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Candor)

Change is inevitable. Change is constant. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Change)

Characters do not change. Opinions alter, but characters are only developed. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Character)

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Character)

Christianity is completed Judaism or it is nothing. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Christians and Christianity)

Man is more powerful than matter. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Circumstance)

Circumstances are beyond human control, but our conduct is in our own power. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Circumstance)

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Circumstance)

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Cities and City Life)

Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilizers of man. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Civilization)

If you are not very clever, you should be conciliatory. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Compromise)

A consistent man believes in destiny, a capricious man in chance. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Consistency)

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Country)

Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Courage)

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Critics and Criticism)

Critics are those who have failed in literature and art. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Critics and Criticism)

Everything comes if a man will only wait. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Cycles)

Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Desperation)

A consistent soul believes in destiny, a capricious one in chance. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Destiny)

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 which will stake even existence upon its fulfillment. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Determination)

Despair is the conclusion of fools. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Doubt)

Duty cannot exist without faith. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Duty)

There can be economy only where there is efficiency. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Economy and Economics)

On the education of the people of this country the fate of the country depends. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Education)

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Education)

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Education)

There is no education like adversity. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Education)

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Enthusiasm)

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Enthusiasm)

The question is this -- Is man an ape or an angel? My Lord, I am on the side of the angels. I repudiate with indignation and abhorrence these new fanged theories. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Evolution)

What we anticipate seldom occurs, what we least expected generally happens. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Expectation)

Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Expediency)

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Explanations)

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Facts)

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Fame)

We make our fortunes and we call them fate. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Fate)

He has not a single redeeming defect. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Faults)

Frank and explicit--that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Frankness)

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Friends and Friendship)

Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Genius)

Genius, when young, is divine. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Genius)

Man is only truly great when he acts from his passions. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Greatness)

A great person is one who affects the mind of their generation. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Greatness)

Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Grief)

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Health)

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Heroes and Heroism)

The best security for civilization is the dwelling, and upon properly appointed and becoming dwellings depends, more than anything else, the improvement of mankind. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Humankind)

He was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Ideas)

To be conscience that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Ignorance)

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Inequality)

How very seldom do you encounter in the world a man of great abilities, acquirements, experience, who will unmask his mind, unbutton his brains, and pour forth in careless and picturesque phrase all the results of his studies and observation; his knowledge of men, books, and nature. On the contrary, if a man has by any chance an original idea, he hoards it as if it were old gold; and rather avoids the subject with which he is most conversant, from fear that you may appropriate his best thoughts. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Inhibition)

Had it not been for you, I should have remained what I was when we first met, a prejudiced, narrow-minded being, with contracted sympathies and false knowledge, wasting my life on obsolete trifles, and utterly insensible to the privilege of living in this wondrous age of change and progress. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Inspiration)

Justice is truth in action. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Justice)

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Law and Lawyers)

No affection and a great brain, these are the people to command the world. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Leaders and Leadership)

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader? - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Leaders and Leadership)

A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Learning)

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Learning)

My objection to Liberalism is this -- that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind -- namely, politics -- of philosophical ideas instead of political principles. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Liberals)

Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Liberals)

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. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Life and Living)

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Love)

The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can never end. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Love)

To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Management)

Nowadays, manners are easy and life is hard. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Manners)

It destroys one's nerve to be amiable every day to the same human being. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Marriage)

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Mediocrity)

Little things affect little minds. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Mediocrity)

We moralize among ruins. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Morality)

Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Nations)

Great countries are those that produce great people. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Nations)

Nature, like man, sometimes weeps from gladness. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Nature)

In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbors. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves; modern society acknowledges no neighbor. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Neighbors)

News is that which comes from the North, East, West and South, and if it comes from only one point on the compass, then it is a class ; publication and not news. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - News)

Predominant opinions are generally the opinions of the generation that is vanishing. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Opinions)

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Opportunity)

No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Opposition)

You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Parliament)

That doctrine of peace at any price has done more mischief than any I can well recall that have been afloat in this country. It has occasioned more wars than any of the most ruthless conquerors. It has disturbed and nearly destroyed that political equilibrium so necessary to the liberties and the welfare of the world. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Peace)

Plagiarists at least have the quality of preservation. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Plagiarism)

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Planning)

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

A majority is always better than the best repartee. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity, and gifted with an egotistical imagination that can at all times command an interminable and inconsistent series of arguments to malign an opponent and to glorify himself. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

Finality is not the language of politics. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

In politics, nothing is contemptible. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

The art of governing mankind by deceiving them. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

There is no gambling like politics. Nothing in which the power of circumstance is more evident. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Politicians and Politics)

Power has only one duty --to secure the social welfare of the People. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Power)

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Preparation)

What we call public opinion is generally public sentiment. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Public Opinion)

Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Purpose)

The secret to success is constancy to purpose. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Purpose)

When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, and opening quotation is a symphony precluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Quotations)

It was not reason that besieged Troy; it was not reason that sent forth the Saracen from the desert to conquer the world; that inspired the crusades; that instituted the monastic orders; it was not reason that produced the Jesuits; above all, it was not reason that created the French Revolution. Man is only great when he acts from the passions; never irresistible but when he appeals to the imagination. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Reason)

Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Religion)

I have been ever of opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Revolutions and Revolutionaries)

Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Royalty)

The pursuit of science leads only to the insoluble. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Science and Scientists)

When little is done, little is said; silence is the mother of truth. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Silence)

Silence is the mother of truth. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Silence)

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Sincerity)

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Speakers and Speaking)

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Statistics)

The secret of success is consistency of purpose. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Success)

Success is the child of audacity. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Success)

Every man has a right to be conceited until he is successful. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Success)

It is the lot of man to suffer. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Suffering)

Perseverance and tact are the two great qualities most valuable for all those who would climb, but especially for those who have to step out of the crowd. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Tact and Tactfulness)

Without tact you can learn nothing. Tact teaches you when to be silent. Inquirers who are always questioning never learn anything. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Tact and Tactfulness)

A person's fate is their own temper. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Temperament)

Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Thoughts and Thinking)

Travel teaches tolerance. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Tolerance)

Protection is not a principle but an expedient. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Trade)

A precedent embalms a principle. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Tradition)

Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Travel and Tourism)

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for truth. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Truth)

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Truth)

Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Truth)

Damn your principals. Stick to your Party! - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Unity)

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Value)

Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Will and Will Power)

Worry -- a God, invisible but omnipotent. It steals the bloom from the cheek and lightness from the pulse; it takes away the appetite, and turns the hair gray. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Worry)

An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Writers and Writing)

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Youth)

We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Youth)

Youth is the trustee of prosperity. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Youth)

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress: having reflected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Conservatives)

I have always thought that every woman should marry -- and no man. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Marriage)

I was told that the Privileged and the People formed Two Nations. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Society)

There is moderation even in excess. - (Disraeli, Benjamin - Moderation)