Isaac D'Israeli Quotes

The most noble criticism is that in which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the author.

A circle may be small, yet it may be as mathematically beautiful and perfect as a large one.

The Plagiarism of orators is the art, or an ingenious and easy mode, which some adroitly employ to change, or disguise, all sorts of speeches of their own composition, or that of other authors, for their pleasure, or their utility; in such a manner that it becomes impossible even for the author himself to recognise his own work, his own genius, and his own style, so skilfully shall the whole be disguised.

The ancients, who in these matters were not perhaps such blockheads as some may conceive, considered poetical quotation as one of the requisite ornaments of oratory.

The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places, and men of genius, in their walks, at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the the mind upwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly.

One may quote till one compiles.

The delights of reading impart the vivacity of youth even to old age.

It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us.

Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius.

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius.

Centuries have not worm-eaten the solidity of this ancient furniture of the mind.

Great collections of books are subject to certain accidents besides the damp, the worms, and the rats; one not less common is that of the borrowers, not to say a word of the purloiners

It is generally supposed that where there is no QUOTATION, there will be found most originality; and as people like to lay out their money according to their notions, our writers usually furnish their pages rapidly with the productions of their own soil: they run up a quickset hedge, or plant a poplar, and get trees and hedges of this fashion much faster than the former landlords procured their timber. The greater part of our writers, in consequence, have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them; and those who never quote, in return are never quoted!

Those who do not read criticism will rarely merit to be criticised.

Beware of the man of one book. [Lat., Home unius libri, or, cave ab homine unius libri.]

Enthusiasm is that secret and harmonious spirit which hovers over the production of genius, throwing the reader of a book, or the spectator of a statue, into the very ideal presence whence these works have really originated. A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.

There is a society in the deepest solitude.

A nickname a man may chance to wear out; but a system of calumnity, pursued by a faction, may descend even to posterity. This principal has taken full effect on this state favorite.

The act of contemplation then creates the thing created.

To think, and to feel, constitute the two grand divisions of men of genius-the men of reasoning and the men of imagination.

The golden hour of invention must terminate like other hours, and when the man of genius returns to the cares, the duties, the vexations, and the amusements of life, his companions behold him as one of themselves - the creature of habits and infirmities.

There is an art of reading, an art of thinking, and an art of writing.

It does not at first appear that an astronomer rapt in abstraction, while he gazes on a star, must feel more exquisite delight than a farmer who is conducting his team.

Style! style! why, all writers will tell you that it is the very thing which can least of all be changed. A man's style is nearly as much a part of him as his physiognomy, his figure, the throbbing of this pulse,--in short, as any part of his being is at least subjected to the action of the will.

After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.

Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear.

Happy the man when he has not the defects of his qualities.

The art of quotation requires more delicacy in the practice than those conceive who can see nothing more in a quotation than an extract.

A great work always leaves us in a state of musing.

Self-love is a principle of action; but among no class of human beings has nature so profusely distributed this principle of life and action as through the whole sensitive family of genius.

But, indeed, we prefer books to pounds; and we love manuscripts better than florins; and we prefer small pamphlets to war horses.

The great man who thinks greatly of himself, is not diminishing that greatness in heaping fuel on his fire.

Philosophy becomes poetry, and science imagination, in the enthusiasm of genius.

This is one of the results of that adventurous spirit which is now stalking forth and raging for its own innovations. We have not only rejected AUTHORITY, but have also cast away EXPERIENCE; and often the unburthened vessel is driving to all points of the compass, and the passengers no longer know whither they are going. The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by QUOTATION.

All this is labour which never meets the eye.... But too open and generous a revelation of the chapter and the page of the original quoted, has often proved detrimental to the legitimate honours of the quoter. They are unfairly appropriated by the next comer; the quoter is never quoted, but the authority he has afforded is produced by his successor with the air of an original research.

It is fortunate that Literature is in no ways injured by the follies of Collectors, since though they preserve the worthless, they necessarily defend the good.

Miscellanists are the most popular writers among every people; for it is they who form a communication between the learned and the unlearned, and, as it were, throw a bridge between those two great divisions of the public.

The defects of great men are the consolation of the dunces.

Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor.

Candour is the brightest gem of criticism.

The Self-Educated are marked by stubborn peculiarities.

Every work of Genius is tinctured by the feelings, and often originates in the events of times.

After the golden age of Latinity, we gradually slide into the silver, and at length precipitately descend into the iron.

Whenever we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords whose tones we are about to harmonize.

The greater part of our writers have become so original, that no one cares to imitate them: and those who never quote in return are seldom quoted.

Golden volumes! richest treasures, Objects of delicious pleasures! You my eyes rejoicing please, You my hand in rapture seize! Brilliant wits and musing sages, Lights who beam'd through many ages! Left to your conscious leaves their story, And dared to trust you with their glory; And now their hope of fame achiev'd, Dear volumes! you have not deceived!

A learned historian declared to me of a contemporary, that the latter had appropriated his researches; he might, indeed, and he had a right to refer to the same originals; but if his predecessor had opened the sources for him, gratitude is not a silent virtue.

If the golden gate of preferment is not usually opened to men of real merit, persons of no worth have entered it in a most extraordinary manner.

Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, enthusiasm is the true part of genius.

An excessive indulgence in the pleasures of social life constitutes the great interests of a luxuriant and opulent age.