Benjamin Disraeli

I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole.

I never deny; I never contradict; I sometimes forget.

The Services in war time are fit only for desperadoes but, in peace, are fit only for fools.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

I hate definitions.

Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentleman were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priests in the temple of Solomon.

That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.

Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Do not read history. Read biography for it is life without theory.

The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation.

A canter is the cure for all evil.

There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics.

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

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.

If you don't believe in magic, then you can't believe in reality.

Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.

A female friend, amiable, clever, and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces; and without such a muse, few men can succeed in life, none be contented.

TACT is the ability to tell someone to go hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.