The World’s Wit and Humor: An Encyclopedia in 15 Volumes. 1906.
Vols. VI–IX: British | | | | Aphorisms | | By Lord Beaconsfield (1804–1881) |
| | From “Novels and Speeches”
THE WOMAN who is talked about is generally virtuous, and she is only abused because she devotes to one the charms which all wish to enjoy. | 1 |
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| It takes three generations to make a gentleman. | 2 |
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| A majority is always better than the best repartee. | 3 |
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| An after-dinner anecdote ought to be as piquant as anchovy toast. | 4 |
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| What is the use of belonging to an old family, unless to have the authority of an ancestor ready for any prejudice, religious or political, which your combinations may require? | 5 |
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| What is crime amongst the multitude is only vice among the few. | 6 |
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| Confiscation is a blunder that destroys public credit; taxation, on the contrary, improves it. Both come to the same thing. | 7 |
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| The critic is a man who has failed in literature or in art. | 8 |
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| One cannot ask any person to meet another in one’s own house without going through a sum of moral arithmetic. | 9 |
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| When a man falls into his anecdotage, it is a sign for him to retire. | 10 |
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| The gentleman was distinguished for ignorance; for he had only one idea, and that was wrong. | 11 |
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| The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right. | 12 | | |
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