Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges

The words of Isaac D’Israeli—“Time, the great destroyer of other men’s happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor”—resound like an ode to the eternal power of the written word. In this statement, he contrasts the fleeting nature of worldly joy with the immortal wealth found in knowledge and literature. While time consumes beauty, power, and prosperity, reducing kingdoms to dust and faces to memory, it cannot erode the treasures stored in the mind and soul of the one who loves books. On the contrary, as years pass, literature only deepens, broadens, and strengthens its hold upon the spirit, granting to its possessor a fortune that grows rather than fades.

In the ancient tradition, time has always been portrayed as a devourer—the relentless force that spares nothing of mortal creation. Statues crumble, empires vanish, and the passions of youth turn pale. But D’Israeli, a man of letters and the father of the great statesman Benjamin Disraeli, saw beyond the common lamentation of time’s cruelty. He discerned that in one domain, time is not destroyer but benefactor. The man of study, the lover of wisdom, is not robbed by age but enriched. Every book read, every reflection gathered, becomes a patrimony, an inheritance that no thief—whether man or time—can take away. For such a soul, the passage of time is not decay, but cultivation.

Imagine the scholar or the poet who, while others mourn the loss of youth, finds new joy in the companionship of ideas. To him, each year adds not wrinkles but insight; not weakness, but depth. Consider Socrates, who in old age declared himself still a student of truth, or Michel de Montaigne, whose essays, written in the calm autumn of his life, distilled the wisdom of decades into timeless reflection. These are the heirs of D’Israeli’s truth. While warriors lose their strength and kings their crowns, the thinker grows richer with each sunset, his soul becoming a treasury of all he has read, felt, and understood.

In his age, D’Israeli lived among the rising tides of industrial ambition, where men measured happiness in coin and conquest. Yet he saw the folly of this pursuit. Worldly happiness—built upon possessions, youth, or favor—was at the mercy of time. But the happiness of the mind, nourished by learning, was indestructible. Books are living vessels of other ages, carrying the voices of the dead across centuries. The one who communes with them partakes in immortality. He becomes heir to the wisdom of generations, his inner life expanding as the outer world fades. Such is the “patrimony” D’Israeli speaks of—not gold or land, but the eternal inheritance of knowledge and reflection.

Consider the example of Leonardo da Vinci, whose endless curiosity spanned art, anatomy, mathematics, and philosophy. Though centuries have passed since his death, his works still whisper the pulse of genius. Time, which devoured his flesh, could not diminish his thoughts; indeed, it magnified them. With each century, his name grows brighter. This is the paradox D’Israeli understood: that the power of the intellect defies the decay of flesh. The works of the mind do not perish with the man; they rise from his grave and continue to instruct the living.

The ancients would have said that such wisdom is the only form of immortality accessible to mortals. The warrior leaves bones, the king leaves monuments, but the thinker leaves truth. The inheritance of literature is not measured in generations but in eternity. Time, which robs others, enriches the lover of books—because every hour spent in contemplation binds him more closely to the eternal conversation of humanity. His wealth is infinite, for every page opens another door to the boundless mansion of the mind.

So, dear listener, let this teaching take root in your heart: seek not the happiness that time can steal, but the joy that grows within the spirit. Cultivate your inner world as one tends a garden that blooms even in winter. Read deeply, think often, and let your mind feast on wisdom as your body ages. The more time takes from you outwardly, the more it will give inwardly if you have sown the seeds of knowledge. Make literature your inheritance, and time—once your enemy—will become your ally.

Thus, the wisdom of Isaac D’Israeli stands as both comfort and commandment: do not fear time, but master it. Fill your days with learning and your heart with wonder. For when all else fades—when youth, fortune, and worldly glory lie in ruins—the treasures of the mind will still gleam, undiminished, in the eternal light of understanding.