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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.

-Benjamin Disraeli

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It Was Not Reason

Benjamin Disraeli

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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.

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Conquer The World

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Women Carry A Beautiful Hand With Them To The Grave, When A Beautiful Face Has Long Ago Vanished.

You Cannot Choose Between Party Government And Parliamentary Government. I Say, You Can Have No Parliamentary Government If You Have No Party Government; And, Therefore, When Gentlemen Denounce Party Government, They Strike At The Scheme Of Government Which, In My Opinion, Has Made This Country Great, And Which I Hope Will Keep It Great.

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.

You Asked Me Where I Generally Lived. In My Workshop [i.e. In His Study] In The Mornings And Always In The Library In The Evening. Books Are Companions Even If You Don’t Open Them.

Mr Speaker, I Withdraw My Statement That Half The Cabinet Are Asses - Half The Cabinet Are Not Asses.

Most People Die With Their Music Still Locked Up Inside Them.

A Man's Fate Is His Own Temper.

Ignorance Never Settles A Question.

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.

The Depositary Of Power Is Always Unpopular.

Action May Not Always Bring Happiness; But There Is No Happiness Without Action.

When I Want To Read A Novel, I Write One.

No Man Is Regular In His Attendance At The House Of Commons Until He Is Married.

Party Is Organized Opinion.

The Jews Are A Nervous People. Nineteen Centuries Of Christian Love Have Taken A Toll.

He Thinks Posterity Is A Pack-horse, Always Ready To Be Loaded.

Is Man An Ape Or An Angel? Now I Am On The Side Of The Angels.

The View Of Jerusalem Is The History Of The World; It Is More, It Is The History Of Earth And Of Heaven.

The Disappointment Of Manhood Succeeds The Delusion Of Youth.

What We Anticipate Seldom Occurs; What We Least Expect Generally Happens.

Nine-tenths Of All Existing Books Are Nonsense.

Bore: One Who Has The Power Of Speech But Not The Capacity For Conversation.

In The Hands Of A Genius, Engineering Turns To Magic, Philosophy Becomes Poetry, And Science Pure Imagination.

A Great Thing Is A Great Book; But A Greater Thing Than All Is The Talk Of A Great Man.

Having The Courage To Live Within One's Means Is Respectability.

Taste, When Once Obtained, May Be Said To Be No Acquiring Faculty, And Must Remain Stationary; But Knowledge Is Of Perpetual Growth And Has Infinite Demands. Taste, Like An Artificial Canal, Winds Through A Beautiful Country, But Its Borders Are Confined And Its Term Is Limited. Knowledge Navigates The Ocean, And Is Perpetually On Voyages Of Discovery.

A Conservative Government Is An Organized Hypocrisy.

We Have Legalized Confiscation, Consecrated Sacrilege, And Condoned High Treason.

Coalitions Though Successful Have Always Found This, That Their Triumph Has Been Brief.

A Man's Fate Is His Own Temper; And According To That Will Be His Opinion As To The Particular Manner In Which The Course Of Events Is Regulated. A Consistent Man Believes In Destiny, A Capricious Man In Chance.

A Consistent Soul Believes In Destiny, A Capricious One In Chance.

Power Has Only One Duty - To Secure The Social Welfare Of The People.

Welfare Programs

The Unfortunate Are Always Egotistical.

The Praise Of A Fool Is Incense To The Wisest Of Us . . .

I Have Always Thought That Every Woman Should Marry, And No Man.

Meditation Is Culture.

Extreme Views Are Never Just; Something Always Turns Up Which Disturbs The Calculations Formed Upon Their Data.

The English Nation Is Never So Great As In Adversity.

No, It Is Better Not. She Will Only Ask Me To Take A Message To Albert.

Without Dancing You Can Never Attain A Perfectly Graceful Carriage, Which Is Of The Highest Importance In Life.

Nobody Is Forgotten, When It Is Convenient To Remember Him.

Here's To The Man Who Rode The Race, Who Took The Time, Who Kept The Time, And Who Did The Trick.

We Are Now In Want Of An Art To Teach How Books Are To Be Read Rather Than To Read Them. Such An Art Is Practicable.

The Essence Of Education Is The Education Of The Body.

I Must Follow The People. Am I Not Their Leader?

As A General Rule, The Most Successful Man In Life Is The Man Who Has The Best Information.

If You Don't Believe In Magic, Then You Can't Believe In Reality.

Rothschild Is The Lord And Master Of The Money Markets Of The World, And Of Course Virtually Lord And Master Of Everything Else. He Literally Held The Revenues Of Southern Italy In Pawn, And Monarchs And Ministers Of All Countries Courted His Advice And Were Guided By His Suggestions.

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.

There Are Few Faces That Can Afford To Smile: A Smile Is Sometimes Bewitching, In General Vapid, Often A Contortion.

There Is Anguish In The Recollection That We Have Not Adequately Appreciated The Affection Of Those Whom We Have Loved And Lost.

It Is Well-known What A Middleman Is: He Is A Man Who Bamboozles One Party And Plunders The Other.

No One But An Adventurous Traveler Can Know The Luxury Of Sleep.

Like All Great Travellers, I Have Seen More Than I Remember, And Remember More Than I Have Seen.

Every Production Of Genius Must Be The Production Of Enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm For Life

Destiny Is Our Will, And Our Will Is Nature.

The First Favourite Was Never Heard Of, The Second Favourite Was Never Seen After The Distance Post, All The Ten-to-oners Were In The Rear, And A Dark Horse Which Had Never Been Thought Of, And Which The Careless St. James Had Never Even Observed In The List, Rushed Past The Grand Stand In Sweeping Triumph.

Coquettes Are, But Too Rare. It Is A Career That Requires Great Abilities, Infinite Pains, A Gay And Airy Spirit. 't Is The Coquette Who Provides All The Amusements,--suggests The Riding-party, Plans The Picnic, Gives And Guesses Charades, Acts Them. She Is The Stirring Element Amid The Heavy Congeries Of Social Atoms,--the Soul Of The House, The Salt Of The Banquet.

It Is Remarkable That When Great Discoveries Are Effected, Their Simplicity Always Seems To Detract From Their Originality: On These Occasions We Are Reminded Of The Egg Of Columbus!

To Be Conscious That You Are Ignorant Of The Facts Is A Great Step To Knowledge.

Great Revolutions, Whatever May Be Their Causes, Are Not Lightly Commenced, And Are Not Concluded With Precipitation.

King Louis Philippe Once Said To Me That He Attributed The Great Success Of The British Nation In Political Life To Their Talking Politics After Dinner.

Luck Is What A Capricious Man Believes In.

The Noble Lord (stanley) Was The Prince Rupert To The Parliamentary Army--his Valour Did Not Always Serve His Own Cause.

Lady Lytton Rules Her Husband, But That I Suppose Is Always The Case Where Marriages Are What Is Called 'happy'.

The Egremonts Had Never Said Anything That Was Remembered, Or Done Anything That Could Be Recalled.

Nothing Can Resist A Will Which Will Stake Even Existence Upon Its Fulfillment.

Despair Is The Conclusion Of Fools.

Governments Do Not Govern, But Merely Control The Machinery Of Government, Being Themselves Controlled By The Hidden Hand.

An Obedient Wife Commands Her Husband.

A Person's Fate Is Their Own Temper.

There Is No Diplomacy Like Silence.

In Politics, Nothing Is Contemptible.

William Gladstone Has Not A Single Redeeming Defect.

There Is Magic In The Memory Of Schoolboy Friendships; It Softens The Heart, And Even Affects The Nervous System Of Those Who Have No Heart.

I Pride Myself In Recognizing And Upholding Ability In Every Party And Wherever I Meet It.

Life Is Too Short To Be Little. You Must Enlarge Your Imagination And Then Act On It.

Life Is Too Short

A University Should Be A Place Of Light, Of Liberty, And Of Learning.

London; A Nation, Not A City.

I Am Myself A Gentleman Of The Press, And Have No Other Escutcheon.

We Are All Born For Love. It Is The Principle Of Existence, And Its Only End.

That Earliest Shock In One's Life Which Occurs To All Of Us; Which First Makes Us Think.

There Is No Waste Of Time In Life Like That Of Making Explanations.

Proverbs Were Anterior To Boots, And Formed The Wisdom Of The Vulgar, And In The Earliest Ages Were The Unwritten Laws Of Morality.

We Cannot Learn Men From Books.

I Think There Is Nothing More Lovely Than The Love Of Two Beautiful Women Who Are Not Envious Of Each Other's Charms.

A New Acquaintance Is Like A New Book. I Prefer It, Even If Bad, To A Classic.

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.

All Of Us Encounter, At Least Once In Our Life, Some Individual Who Utters Words That Make Us Think Forever. There Are Men Whose Phrases Are Oracles; Who Condense In One Sentence The Secrets Of Life; Who Blurt Out An Aphorism That Forms A Character Or Illustrates An Existence.

As Men Advance In Life, All Passions Resolve Themselves Into Money. Love, Ambition, Even Poetry, End In This.

Real Politics Are The Possession And Distribution Of Power.

Distribution Of Power

He Who Anticipates His Century Is Generally Persecuted When Living, And Always Pilfered When Dead.

Religion Is Civilization, The Highest.

The Delight Of Opening A New Pursuit, Or A New Course Of Reading, Imparts The Vivacity And Novelty Of Youth Even To Old Age.

I Think That An Author Who Speaks About His Own Books Is Almost As Bad As A Mother Who Talks About Her Own Children.

There Is No Wisdom Like Frankness.

A Nation Will Not Count The Sacrifice It Makes, If It Supposes It Is Engaged In A Struggle For Its Fame, Its Influence And Its Existence.

Everyone Likes Flattery; And When You Come To Royalty You Should Lay It On With A Trowel.

Change Is Constant In A Progressive Country.

Mediocrity Can Talk, But It Is For Genius To Observe.

I Am A Conservative To Preserve All That Is Good In Our Constitution, A Radical To Remove All That Is Bad.

When Men Are Pure, Laws Are Useless; When Men Are Corrupt, Laws Are Broken.

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.

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.

Time Is Precious, But Truth Is More Precious Than Time.

It Is Useless To Deny, And Impossible To Conceal, That A Great Part Of Europe, The Whole Of Italy And France, And A Great Portion Of Germany, To Say Nothing Of Other Countries - Is Covered With A Network Of These Secret Societies, Just As The Superfices Of The Earth Are Being Covered With Railroads.

The Right Honourable Gentleman Caught The Whigs Bathing, And Walked Away With Their Clothes. He Has Left Them In The Full Enjoyment Of Their Liberal Positions, And He Is Himself A Strict Conservative Of Their Garments.

I Never Deny. I Never Contradict. I Sometimes Forget.

The Best Security For Civilization Is The Dwelling, And Upon Properly Appointed And Becoming Dwellings Depends, More Than Anything Else, The Improvement Of Mankind.

The World Is A Wheel, And It Will All Come Round Right.

Everything Comes If A Man Will Only Wait.

Christianity Teaches Us To Love Our Neighbor As Ourself; Modern Society Acknowledges No Neighbor.

Novelty Is An Essential Attribute Of The Beautiful.

What Is Crime Amongst The Multitude, Is Only Vice Among The Few.

Why, I Say, That To Tax The Community For The Advantage Of A Class Is Not Protection; It Is Plunder, And I Entirely Disclaim It; But I Ask You To Protect The Rights And Interests Of Labour Generally In The First Place, By Allowing No Free Imports From Countries Which Meet You With Countervailing Duties; And, In The Second Place, With Respect To Agricultural Produce, To Compensate The Soil For The Burdens From Which Other Classes Are Free By An Equivalent Duty. This Is My View Of What Is Called "protection."

Nationality Is The Miracle Of Political Independence; Race Is The Principle Of Physical Analogy.

And It Is A Singular Truth That, Though A Man May Shake Off National Habits, Accent, Manner Of Thinking, Style Of Dress,--though He May Become Perfectly Identified With Another Nation, And Speak Its Language Well, Perhaps Better Than His Own,--yet Never Can He Succeed In Changing His Handwriting To A Foreign Style.

My Idea Of An Acceptable Person Is Someone That Is Ready To Accept My Ideas.

There Is No Education Like Adversity.

But What Minutes! Count Them By Sensation, And Not By Calendars, And Each Moment Is A Day.

Every Man Has A Right To Be Conceited Until He Is Successful.

A Precedent Embalms A Principle.

I Believe That, Without Party, Parliamentary Government Is Impossible.

Life Is To Short To Be Small.

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.

It Is The Lot Of Man To Suffer.

The Expected Always Happens

The Press Is Not Only Free, It Is Powerful. That Power Is Ours. It Is The Proudest That Man Can Enjoy.

Beauty Can Inspire Miracles.

As I Sat Opposite The Treasury Bench The Ministers Reminded Me Of One Of Those Marine Landscapes Not Very Unusual On The Coasts Of South America. You Behold A Range Of Exhausted Volcanoes.

Consider Ireland.... You Have A Starving Population, An Absentee Aristocracy, And An Alien Church, And In Addition The Weakest Executive In The World. That Is The Irish Question.

How Much Easier It Is To Be Critical Than To Be Correct.

Positive Thinking

The Indulgence In Grief Is A Blunder.

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.

Romance Has Been Elegantly Defined As The Offspring Of Fiction And Love.

Nothing Can Withstand The Power Of The Human Will If It Is Willing To Stake Its Very Existence To The Extent Of Its Purpose.

There Are Amusing People Who Do Not Interest, And Interesting People Who Do Not Amuse

Christianity Is Completed Judaism Or It Is Nothing.

All Is Race; There Is No Other Truth ,and Every Race Must Fall Which Carelessly Suffers Its Blood To Become Mixed.

If You Want To Be A Leader Of People, You Must Learn To Watch Events.

That Youthful Fervor, Which Is Sometimes Called Enthusiasm, But Which Is A Heat Of Imagination Subsequently Discovered To Be Inconsistent With The Experience Of Actual Life.

Her Majesty Is Not A Subject.

England Is Unrivalled For Two Things - Sport And Politics.

Female Friendships Are Of Rapid Growth.

The British People, Being Subject To Fogs, Require Grave Statesmen.

I Grew Intoxicated With My Own Eloquence.

There Can Be Economy Only Where There Is Efficiency.

Whatever They Did, The Elysians Were Careful Never To Be Vehement.

"as For That," Said Waldenshare, "sensible Men Are All Of The Same Religion." "pray, What Is That?" Inquired The Prince. "sensible Men Never Tell."

Something Unpleasant Is Coming When Men Are Anxious To Tell The Truth.

Success Is The Child Of Audacity.

A Parsimony Of Words Prodigal Of Sense.

A Nation, As An Individual, Has Duties To Fulfill Appointed By God And His Moral Law.

The Constitution Of England Is Not A Paper Constitution. It Is An Aggregate Of Institutions, Many Of Them Founded Merely Upon Prescription, Some Of Them Fortified By Muniments, But All Of Them The Fruit And Experience Of An Ancient And Illustrious People.

Enthusiasm Is The Breath Of Genius.

The Sweet Simplicity Of The Three Percents.

The Noble Lord Is The Rupert Of Debate.

Upon The Education Of The People Of This Country The Fate Of This Country Depends.

Teach Us That Wealth Is Not Elegance, That Profusion Is Not Magnificence, That Splendor Is Not Beauty.

All Paradise Opens! Let Me Die Eating Ortolans To The Sound Of Soft Music!

The Greatest Of All Evils Is A Weak Government

Weak Government

The Most Powerful Men Are Not Public Men: A Public Man Is Responsible, And A Responsible Man Is A Slave. It Is Private Life That Governs The World.

Experience Is The Child Of Thought, And Thought Is The Child Of Action.

Positive Thinking

Trust Not Overmuch To The Blessed Magdalen; Learn To Protect Yourself.

Protect Yourself

Popular Privileges Are Consistent With A State Of Society In Which There Is Great Inequality Of Position. Democratic Rights, On The Contrary, Demand That There Should Be Equality Of Condition As The Fundamental Basis Of The Society They Regulate.

Were It Not For Music, We Might In These Days Say, The Beautiful Is Dead.

There Is No Act Of Treachery Or Meanness Of Which A Political Party Is Not Capable; For In Politics There Is No Honour.

O Music! Miraculous Art! A Blast Of Thy Trumpet And Millions Rush Forward To Die; A Peal Of Thy Organ And Uncounted Nations Sink Down To Pray.

Success Is A Product Of Unremitting Attention To Purpose.

The World Is Governed By Personalities Very Different To What People That Cannot See Further Than Their Eyes, Believe

Accent And Emphasis Are The Pith Of Reading; Punctuation Is But Secondary.

All My Successes Have Been Built On My Failures.

Failure Inspirational

Of All Unfortunate Men One Of The Unhappiest Is A Middling Author Endowed With Too Lively A Sensibility For Criticism.

I Will Sit Down Now, But The Time Will Come When You Will Hear Me.

Finality Is Not The Language Of Politics.

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.

It Destroys One's Nerves To Be Amiable Every Day To The Same Human Being.

The Wisdom Of The Wise And The Experience Of The Ages Are Perpetuated By Quotations.

Through Persistence Numerous Individuals Win Accomplishment Out Of What Appeared Bound To Be Sure Disappointment.

The Press Is Not Only Free, It Is Powerful. That Power Is Ours. It Is The Proudest That Man Can Enjoy. It Was Not Granted By Monarchs, It Was Not Gained For Us By Aristocracies; But It Sprang From The People, And, With An Immortal Instinct, It Has Always Worked For The People.

The Duke Of Wellington Brought To The Post Of First Minister Immortal Fame,-a Quality Of Success Which Would Almost Seem To Include All Others.

You Have Proved It Is A Very Moral Habit.

An Insular Country, Subject To Fogs, And With A Powerful Middle Class, Requires Grave Statesmen.

Wherever Is Found What Is Called A Paternal Government, There Is Found State Education. It Has Been Discovered That The Best Way To Insure Implicit Obedience Is To Commence Tyranny In The Nursery.

Be Civil To All; Sociable To Many; Familiar With Few.

Man Is Only Truly Great When He Acts From The Passions; Never Irresistible But When He Appeals To The Imagination.

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.

Ah, Ireland... That Damnable, Delightful Country, Where Everything That Is Right Is The Opposite Of What It Ought To Be.

My Idea Of An Agreeable Person Is A Person Who Agrees With Me.

Moderation Is The Center Wherein All Philosophies, Both Human And Divine, Meet.

Quit The World, And The World Forgets You.

Man Is Made To Create, From The Poet To The Potter.

To Supervise People, You Must Either Surpass Them In Their Accomplishments Or Despise Them.

The World Is Weary Of Statesmen Whom Democracy Has Degraded Into Politicians.

Democracies Have

Those Who Cannot Themselves Observe Can At Least Acquire The Observation Of Others.

You Must Not Contrast Too Strongly The Hours Of Courtship With The Years Of Possession.

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.

It Is The Fashion To Style The Present Moment An Extraordinary Crisis.

There Are Few Positions Less Inspiriting Than Those Of A Discomfited Party.

Under This Roof Are The Heads Of The Family Of Rothschild - A Name Famous In Every Capital Of Europe And Every Division Of The Globe. If You Like, We Shall Divide The United States Into Two Parts, One For You, James [rothschild], And One For You, Lionel [rothschild]. Napoleon Will Do Exactly And All That I Shall Advise Him.

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