Frases de Benjamin Disraeli

“La juventud es un disparate; la madurez, una lucha; la vejez, un remordimiento.”

“Hay personas divertidas que no interesan, y personas interesantes que no divierten.”

“Hay personas silenciosas que son mucho más interesantes que los mejores oradores.”

“La alegría del primer amor es nuestro desconocimiento de que puede tener fin.”

“Nada revela tan fiablemente el carácter de una persona como su voz.”

“La variedad es la madre del placer.”

“Nunca discutir. Si en sociedad alguna persona difiere de tu modo de pensar, cambia de conversación.”

“¿Sabéis quienes son los críticos? Aquellos que fracasaron en la literatura y en las artes.”

“La sabiduría de los sabios y la experiencia de los siglos pueden conservarse en citas.”

“Lo mejor que podemos hacer por otro no es sólo compartir con él nuestras riquezas, sino mostrarles las suyas y descubrir la nuestra.”

“No hay otra educación como la adversidad.”

“Piensa antes de hacer, pero no te pases tanto tiempo pensando que no llegues a empezar.”

“Triunfar tarde no es triunfar: es alcanzar al mismo tiempo la inmortalidad y la muerte.”

“Mi idea de una persona agradable es una persona que está de acuerdo conmigo”

“En política, los experimentos significan revolución.”

“La ciencia es para el mundo moderno lo que el arte fue para el antiguo.”

“La fortuna, el éxito, la gloria el poder pueden aumentar la felicidad, pero no darla. Sólo el cariño da la dicha.”

“La vida es demasiado corta para que la hagamos mezquina.”

“Los críticos son los hombres que han fracasado en la literatura y las artes.”

“Los viajes enseñan la tolerancia.”

“El que ostenta el poder es siempre impopular.”

“El hombre no es el creador de las circunstancias, más bien las circunstancias crean al hombre.”

“Como puedes ver, mi querido Coningsby, el mundo está gobernado por personajes muy distintos a los que se imaginan aquellos que no están detrás del telón.”

“Hasta en el exceso existe una moderación.”

“La ignorancia nunca da por terminadas las cuestiones.”

“La magia del primer amor consiste en nuestra ignorancia de que pueda tener fin.”

“La moderación es también un exceso.”

“Las torpezas de la juventud son preferibles a los aciertos de la vejez.”

“Lo más importante en la vida, después de saber cuándo aprovechar una oportunidad, es saber cuándo prescindir de una ventaja.”

“Lo que prevemos, raramente ocurre; lo que menos esperamos es lo que sucede generalmente.”

“Lo verdaderamente mágico de nuestro primer amor es la absoluta ignorancia de que alguna vez ha de terminar.”

“Los experimentos en política significan revoluciones.”

“Los jóvenes de una nación son los depositarios de la posteridad.”

“Ningún gobierno puede mantenerse sólido mucho tiempo sin una oposición temible.”

“No siempre la acción tiene felicidad, pero no hay acción sin felicidad.”

“Ser consciente de la propia ignorancia es un gran paso hacia el saber.”

“Todas las mujeres deberían casarse, los hombres no.”

“El secreto del éxito es la constancia en el propósito.”

“El éxito es hijo de la audacia.”

“Como todos los grandes viajeros, yo he visto más cosas de las que recuerdo, y recuerdo más cosas de las que he visto.”

“Alimentad el espíritu con grandes pensamientos. La fe en un heroísmo hace los héroes.”

“The secret of success is constancy to purpose.”

“The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.”

“Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.”

“Ignorance never settles a question.”

“Though lions to their enemies they were lambs to their friends.”

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.”

“We make our own fortunes and we call them fate.”

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

“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.”

“There is no doubt a difference in the right hon. gentleman's demeanour as leader of the Opposition and as Minister of the Crown. But that's the old story; you must not contrast too strongly the hours of courtship with the years of possession. 'Tis very true that the right hon. gentleman's conduct is different. I remember him making his protection speeches. They were the best speeches I ever heard. It was a great thing to hear the right hon. gentleman say: "I would rather be the leader of the gentlemen of England than possess the confidence of Sovereigns". That was a grand thing. We don't hear much of "the gentlemen of England" now. But what of that? They have the pleasures of memory—the charms of reminiscence. They were his first love, and, though he may not kneel to them now as in the hour of passion, still they can recall the past; and nothing is more useless or unwise than these scenes of crimination and reproach, for we know that in all these cases, when the beloved object has ceased to charm, it is in vain to appeal to the feelings. You know that this is true. Every man almost has gone through it. My hon. gentleman does what he can to keep them quiet; he sometimes takes refuge in arrogant silence, and sometimes he treats them with haughty frigidity; and if they knew anything of human nature they would take the hint and shut their mouths. But they won't. And what then happens? What happens under all such circumstances? The right hon. gentleman, being compelled to interfere, sends down his valet, who says in the genteelest manner: "We can have no whining here". And that, sir, is exactly the case of the great agricultural interest—that beauty which everybody wooed and one deluded. There is a fatality in such charms, and we now seem to approach the catastrophe of her career. Protection appears to be in about the same condition that Protestantism was in 1828. The country will draw its moral. For my part, if we are to have free trade, I, who honour genius, prefer that such measures should be proposed by the hon. member for Stockport than by one who through skilful Parliamentary manoeuvres has tampered with the generous confidence of a great people and a great party. For myself, I care not what may be the result. Dissolve, if you please, the Parliament you have betrayed. For me there remains this at least—the opportunity of expressing thus publicly my belief that a Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.”

“Despair is the conclusion of fools.”

“Free trade is not a principle; it is an expedient.”

“I am not ashamed or afraid to say that I wish more sympathy had been shown on both sides towards the Chartists. … I am not ashamed to say that I sympathise with millions of my fellow-subjects.”

“I look upon the Whigs as an anti-national party. … Believing that the policy of the party was such as must destroy the honour of the kingdom abroad and the happiness of the people at home, I considered it my duty to oppose the Whigs, to ensure their discomfiture, and, if possible, their destruction.”

“I come forward as the supporter of that great interest which is the only solid basis of the social fabric, and, convinced that the sound prosperity of this country depends upon the protected industry of the farmer, I would resist that spirit of rash and experimental legislation which is fast hurrying this once glorious Empire to the agony of civil convulsion.”

“I shall withhold my support from every Ministry which will not originate some great measure to ameliorate the condition of the lower orders.”

“Her Majesty's present Ministers have hitherto been enabled to secure that peace, so necessary to the welfare of all the civilized countries, and so peculiarly the interest of our own. But this ineffable blessing cannot be obtained by the passive principle of non-interference. Peace rests on the presence, not to say the ascendancy, of England in the Councils of Europe. ... May [the election] return to Westminster a Parliament not unworthy of the power of England and resolved to maintain it!”

“[T]here are some who challenge the expediency of the Imperial character of this realm. Having attempted, and failed, to enfeeble our colonies by their policy of decomposition, they may, perhaps, now recognize in the disintegration of the United Kingdom a mode which will not only accomplish, but precipitate their purpose. The immediate dissolution of Parliament will afford an opportunity to the nation to decide upon a course which will materially influence its fortunes and shape its destiny. Rarely in this century has there been an occasion more critical. The power of England and the peace of Europe will largely depend on the verdict of the country.”

“[R]eciprocity is barter. I always understood that barter was the last effort of civilization that it was exactly that state of human exchange that separated civilization from savagery; and if reciprocity is only barter, I fear that would hardly help us out of our difficulty. ... [W]hen he taunts me with his quotation of some musty phrases of mine 40 years ago, I must remind him that we had elements then on which treaties of reciprocity could be negotiated. At that time, although the great changes of Sir Robert Peel had taken place, there were 168 articles in the tariff which were materials by which you could have negotiated, if that was a wise and desirable policy, commercial treaties of reciprocity. What is the number you now have in the tariff? Twenty-two. Those who talk of negotiating treaties of reciprocity...have they the materials for negotiating treaties of reciprocity? You have lost the opportunity. I do not want to enter into the argument at the present moment; but England cannot pursue that policy.”

“Your aim is to reduce every thing to your own mean level—to degrade every thing to your malignant standard... In all your conduct it is not difficult to detect the workings of a mean and long mortified spirit suddenly invested with power,—the struggles of a strong ambition attempting, by a wanton exercise of authority, to revenge the disgrace of a feeble intellect.”

“The life of this people greatly accords with my taste, which is naturally somewhat indolent and melancholy... To repose on voluptuous ottomans and smoke superb pipes, daily to indulge in the luxuries of a bath which requires half a dozen attendants for its perfection; to court the air in a carved caïque, by shores which are a perpetual scene; and to find no exertion greater than a canter on a barb; this is, I think, a far more sensible life than all the bustle of clubs, all the boring of drawing-rooms, and all the coarse vulgarity of our political controversies.”

“Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world.”

“Verona is full of pictures which have never been painted. Every step excites emotion and gives rise to unaffected reflection. In the course of a short stroll, you may pass by a Roman amphitheatre, still used, then the castle of some petty prince of the Middle Ages, and while you are contrasting the sublime elevation of antiquity with the heterogeneous palace of a Scaliger your eyes light on a gate of Oriental appearance and fantastic ornament... The illusion is perfect, the eye rests with pain on the passing citizens in their modern costumes; you look for black velvets and gold chains, white feathers and red stockings.”

“Head of Christ by Morales, exactly as in the description in the pseudo letter of the Roman Proconsul. Morales well entitled to his surname of Divino... [T]he auburn locks seem only prevented from growing over the countenance by the moiety of the star which forms the glory: everything which can even be conceived as necessary to the formation of a face of perfect beauty, but nothing earthly in the appearance. You could not mistake the head for an Apollo or an Adonis. The eyes, beaming with human beauty, are nevertheless bright with the effulgence of celestial light, and fixed upon no particular object. They seem looking on the world. The nose is exquisitely formed, and the flesh tints seem immortal.”

“You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people. You must act as if everything depended on your individual efforts. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Go to your homes, and teach there these truths, which will soon be imprinted on the conscience of the land. Make each man feel how much rests on his own exertions... Act in this spirit, and you will succeed. You will maintain your country in its present position. But you will do more than that, you will deliver to your posterity a land of liberty, of prosperity, of power, and of glory.”

“There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.”

“I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad.”

“A popular assembly without parties—500 isolated individuals—cannot stand five years against a Minister with an organized Government without becoming a servile Senate.”

“I believe that, without party, Parliamentary government is impossible”