William Ewart Gladstone on Benjamin Disraeli

“...a man who is never beaten. Every reverse, every defeat is to him only an admonition to wait and catch his opportunity of retrieving his position.”

“The downfall of Beaconsfieldism is like the vanishing of some vast magnificent castle in an Italian romance.”

“I who...thought his doctrines false, but the man more false than his doctrine; who believe that he demoralised public opinion, bargained with diseased appetites, stimulated passions, prejudices, and selfish desires, that they might maintain his influence; that he weakened the Crown by approving its unconstitutional leanings, and the Constitution by offering any price for democratic popularity,—who, privately, deem him the worst and most immoral minister since Castlereagh.”

“Mr. G. seemed to attribute much or most of the cross-fighting and personal running in Parliament to the infection of Disraeli's character and career. He said he felt most deeply the dreadful mischief he had done to his party and politics generally... In past times the Tory Party had principles by which it would and did stand for bad and for good. All this Dizzy destroyed.”