We should never lose an occasion. Opportunity is more powerful even than conquerors and prophets.
— Benjamin Disraeli
Nobody is forgotten when it is convenient to remember him.
A precedent embalms a principle.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
The palace is not safe when the cottage is not happy.
A man may speak very well in the House of Commons, and fail very completely in the House of Lords. There are two distinct styles requisite: I intend, in the course of my career, if I have time, to give a specimen of both.
Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.
To be conscious that you are ignorant of the facts is a great step to knowledge.
If a man be gloomy let him keep to himself. No one has the right to go croaking about society, or what is worse, looking as if he stifled grief.
The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes.
The first magic of love is our ignorance that it can ever end.
The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.
There is moderation even in excess.
Diligence is the mother of good fortune.
No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.
Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.
The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.
Never take anything for granted.
The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
Justice is truth in action.
The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed. These are fearful odds.
One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.
An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.
Silence is the mother of truth.
Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
Moderation is the center wherein all philosophies, both human and divine, meet.
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.
It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.
A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.
William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.
What we anticipate seldom occurs: but what we least expect generally happens.
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.
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.
If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory.
In a progressive country change is constant; change is inevitable.
Be amusing: never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.
Man is only great when he acts from passion.
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.
Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.
There is no index of character so sure as the voice.
Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.
Let the fear of a danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
