A novelist as well as a politician, Disraeli left us with many delightful and memorable lines,including this selection taken from his nearly three-page listing in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations: |
"I never deny; I never contradict;
I sometimes forget." -- Said to Lord Esher of his relations with
Queen Victoria in Elizabeth Longord
Victoria R. I (1964) ch. 27
"The right hon. Gentleman caught the
Whigs bathing, and walked away with their
clothes."--Speech, Hansard 28
February 1845, col. 154 (on Sir Robert Peel's abandoning
protection in favour of free trade,
traditionally the policy of the [Whig] opposition)
"Never complain and never explain."
In J. Morley Life of William Ewart Gladstone (1903) vol 1,
p. 123. Cf. Fisher 283:5, Hubbard 353:9
"Change is inevitable in a progressive
country. Change is constant." --Speech at Edinburgh,
29 October 1867, in The Times 30 October
1867
"An author who speaks about his own
books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about
her own children." --At a banquet
given in Glasgow on his installation as Lord Rector, 19
November 1873, in The Times 20 November
1873
"A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated
with the exuberance of his own verbosity." --Of
Gladstone, in The Times 29 July 1878
"There
are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
--Attributed to Disraeli in Mark
Twain Autobiography (1924) vol. 1, p.
246
"Every day when he looked into the
glass, and gave the last touch to his consummate toilette,
he offered his grateful thanks to
Providence that his family was not unworthy of him." --Lothair
(1870) ch. 1
"When a man fell into his anecdotage
it was a sign for him to retire from the world." --Lothair
(1870) ch. 28
"Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished
for ignorance, for he had only one idea--and that was
wrong." --Sybil (1845) bk. 4,
ch. 5. Cf. Johnson 373:10
"Damn your principles! Stick to your
party." --Attributed to Disraeli and believed to have been
said to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in E.
Latham Famous Sayings and their Authors (1904) p. 11
"Everyone likes flattery; and when
you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." --To
Matthew Arnold, in G.E.E. Russell Collections
and Recollections (1898) ch. 23