The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:

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

    Said to Lord Esher of his relations with Queen Victoria in Elizabeth Longord Victoria R. I (1964) ch. 27
• "The right hon. Gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes."

   Speech, Hansard 28 February 1845, col. 154 (on Sir Robert Peel's abandoning protection in favour of free trade, traditionally the policy of the [Whig] opposition)
• "Never complain and never explain."

In J. Morley Life of William Ewart Gladstone (1903) vol 1, p. 123. Cf. Fisher 283:5, Hubbard 353:9
• "Change is inevitable in a progressive country. Change is constant."

    Speech at Edinburgh, 29 October 1867, in The Times 30 October 1867
• "An author who speaks about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own children."

    At a banquet given in Glasgow on his installation as Lord Rector, 19 November 1873, in The Times 20 November 1873
• "A sophistical rhetorician, inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity."

    Of Gladstone, in The Times 29 July 1878
• "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."

   Attributed to Disraeli in Mark Twain Autobiography (1924) vol. 1, p. 246
• "Every day when he looked into the glass, and gave the last touch to his consummate toilette, he offered his grateful thanks to Providence that his family was not unworthy of him."

   Lothair (1870) ch. 1
• "When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world."

    Lothair (1870) ch. 28
• "Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance, for he had only one idea and that was wrong."

    Sybil (1845) bk. 4, ch. 5. Cf. Johnson 373:10
• "Damn your principles! Stick to your party."

    Attributed to Disraeli and believed to have been said to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, in E. Latham Famous Sayings and their Authors (1904) p. 11
• "Everyone likes flattery; and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel."

   To Matthew Arnold, in G.E.E. Russell Collections and Recollections (1898) ch. 23

"Humor and Speeches: A Stand-up History," Eugene Finerman, Audience: Speechwriters Forum, Chicago, Illinois, December 5, 1995
 

• Disraeli's political rival and comic foil was William Gladstone. Gladstone was a man of great ability and achievements, but even Queen Victoria found him a pompous bore. To quote Disraeli, William Gladstone "has not a single redeeming defect". This is how Disraeli distinguished between a misfortune and a calamity. "If Mr. Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; if someone pulled him out, that would be a calamity."

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Май 1999