Quote #13

The right honourable gentleman [Sir Robert Peel] tells us to go back to precedents; with him a great measure is always founded on a small precedent. He traces the steam-engine always back to the tea-kettle. His precedents are generally tea-kettle precedents.

More from Benjamin Disraeli

  1. It is well-known what a middleman is: he is a man who bamboozles one party and plunders the other.
  2. Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.
  3. Protection is not a principle, but an expedient.
  4. A precedent embalms a principle.
  5. A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.
  6. My objection to Liberalism is this-that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind-namely, politics-of …
  7. The right honorable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their …
  8. Nationality is the miracle of political independence; race is the principle of physical analogy.

All Benjamin Disraeli quotes