Benjamin Disraeli

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

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

Adventures are to the adventurous.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

To supervise people, you must either surpass them in their accomplishments or despise them.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

The more you are talked about the less powerful you are.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

Frank and explicit - that is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and confuse the minds of others.

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

Duty cannot exist without faith.

There is no greater index of character so sure as the voice.

Without tact you can learn nothing.

Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.

A majority is always better than the best repartee.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

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.