Benjamin Disraeli - England Quotes

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What, then, was that policy? It was a policy of conditional neutrality. Under the circumstances of the case we did not believe that it was for the honour or interest of England or Turkey that we should take any part in the impending contest; but while we enforced the neutrality which we prepared to observe, we declared at the same time that that neutrality must cease if British interests were assailed or menaced. Cosmopolitan critics, men who are the friends of every country save their own, have denounced this policy as a selfish policy. My Lord Mayor, it is as selfish as patriotism.

Benjamin Disraeli
Gentl, I am a party man. I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible. I look upon Parliamentary government as the noblest government in the world, and certainly the one most suited to England.

Benjamin Disraeli
The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

Benjamin Disraeli
It has been said that the people of this country are deeply interested in the humanitarian and philanthropic considerations involved in [the Eastern Question]. All must appreciate such feelings. But I am mistaken if there be not a yet deeper sentiment on the part of the people of this country, one with which I cannot doubt your lordships will ever sympathise, and that is—the determination to maintain the Empire of England.

Benjamin Disraeli
Yes! I know what I have to face. I have to face a coalition. The combination may be successful. A coalition has before this been successful. But coalitions, although successful, have always found this, that their triumph has been brief. This too I know, that England does not love coalitions.

Benjamin Disraeli
If the history of England be ever written by one who has the knowledge and the courage,-and both qualities are equally requisite for the undertaking, - the world will be more astonished than when reading the Roman annals by Niebuhr.

Benjamin Disraeli
This is to be observed of the Bishop of London, that, though apparently of a spirit somewhat austere, there is in his idiosyncrasy a strange fund of enthusiasm, a quality which ought never to be possessed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Prime Minister of England [sic]. The Bishop of London sympathies with everything that is earnest; but what is earnest is not always true; on the contrary error is often more earnest than truth.

Benjamin Disraeli
What is wanted in architecture, as in so many things, is a man.... One suggestion might be made-no profession in England has done its duty until it has furnished a victim.... Even our boasted navy never achieved a great victory until we shot an admiral. Suppose an architect were hanged? Terror has its inspiration, as well as competition.

Benjamin Disraeli
The Continent will [not] suffer England to be the workshop of the world.

Benjamin Disraeli
The enterprise of America precedes that of Europe, as the industry of England precedes that of the rest of Europe.

Benjamin Disraeli
Is it what you call civilization that makes England flourish? Is it the universal development of the faculties of man that has rendered an island, almost unknown to the ancients, the
arbiter of the world? Clearly not. It is the inhabitants that have done this. It is an affair of race.... All is race, there is no other truth.

Benjamin Disraeli
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.

Benjamin Disraeli