20 Benjamin Disraeli Quotes on Leadership

Benjamin Disraeli quotes on leadership

1. To govern men, you must either excel them in their accomplishments, or despise them.

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

34. In the character of the victim [Lincoln], and even in the accessories of his last moments, there is something so homely and innocent that it takes the question, as it were, out of all the pomp of history and the ceremonial of diplomacy-it touches the heart of nations and appeals to the domestic sentiment of mankind.

53. For nearly five years the present Ministers have harassed every trade, worried every profession, and assailed or menaced every class, institution, and species of property in the country. Occasionally they have varied this state of civil warfare by perpetrating some job which outraged public opinion, or by stumbling into mistakes which have been always discreditable, and sometimes ruinous. All this they call a policy, and seem quite proud of it; but the country has, I think, made up its mind to close this career of plundering and blundering.

65. Which do you believe most likely to enter an insane convention, a body of English gentlemen honoured by the favour of their Sovereign and the confidence of their fellow-subjects, managing your affairs for five years, I hope with prudence, and not altogether without success, or 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?

114. A government of statesmen or of clerks? Of Humbug or Humdrum?

126. Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

127. The world is governed by very different personages to what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

134. 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.

142. Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.

149. That we may live to see England once more possess a free Monarchy and a privileged and prosperous People, is my Prayer; that these great consequences can only be brought about by the energy and devotion of our Youth is my persuasion. We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions; and the Youth of a Nation are the trustees of Posterity.

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

175. An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.

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

209. Never complain and never explain.

222. The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.

227. The right honourable gentleman is reminiscent of a poker. The only difference is that a poker gives off the occasional signs of warmth. (On Robert Peel)

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

250. 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.

265. The present man will do well, and will be particularly loyal and anxious to please me in every way. He is vy. peculiar, but vy. clever and sensible and vy. conciliatory.