Mrs. Brown (1997)

Antony Sher: Disraeli

Quotes 

• Lord Stanley : [the Prince of Wales has just had a rather cryptic conversation with Disraeli]  What did he want?

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : To know when he'll be king.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : [Inside a horse-drawn carriage traveling across a huge Highland landscape]  Yesterday, Gladstone talked for three hours on the Irish Church Bill... I am as guilty as the rest of underestimating his reforming zeal. Tory days may be numbered, but I fancy there yet remains one last hope of deliverance. Wheresoever the blame lies, we must now close ranks and defend Mrs Brown's England. As for my interminable journey to the land of Calvin, oatcakes and sulphur...

  [arrives at Balmoral] 

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : no Prime Minister made greater sacrifice than attempting to run the country six hundred miles north of civilization.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : [catching his breath after climbing a knoll]  Princes and lords are but the breath of kings. An honest man is the noblest work of God.

• John Brown : I promised to protect her - from people like you.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : [chuckling]  For once in my life, I'm not the issue.

  John Brown : She'll never understand it.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : Oh, in time she will.

  John Brown : She'll think I've betrayed her.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : But others will know that you acted for the greater good.

• John Brown : Do you hunt?

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : Mmm, occasionally.

  John Brown : Daresay we could have you taught.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : To shoot, perhaps, but not to kill.

  John Brown : If you hunt, you hunt to kill.

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : Well, then, I'll do my best.

• Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : [stridently to Parliament]  This nation is fortunate insomuch as it is not governed by force, but by a chain of traditions that have been cherished from generation to generation. Because in them, in our traditions, are embodied all the laws that have enabled us to create the greatest empire of modern time!

  [cheering] 

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : And even though we have amassed great capital, and even though we have established an industry with no parallel in the world. Yet all these mighty creations are as nothing compared to the invisible customs which shape our lives.

  [cheering] 

  Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli : To those honorable gentlemen of the opposition that seek to destroy the essential elements of this country I say, let them remember England cannot begin again!

  [raucous cheering]