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Who really said it

What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?

Not Benjamin Disraeli — a French joke pinned on him after his death Unknown — an anonymous French wit In print by 28 May 1861 · first credited to Disraeli in January 1887
Disputed Free to reuse

Quote Investigator ↗ traces this joke to France: its earliest known appearance is The Leeds Mercury of 28 May 1861, where Napoleon III tells his son that Prince Jérôme Napoléon falling into the Seine would be an ‘accident’ and being helped out again a ‘misfortune’. Disraeli died on 19 April 1881; the first version bearing his name ran in The Dial of Chicago in January 1887, and it used different words — ‘mischance’ against ‘misfortune’. The familiar misfortune/calamity phrasing surfaces only in Wilfrid Meynell’s 1903 anecdote biography, where — worth noticing — the sentence in the headline is asked of Disraeli by an unnamed questioner, not spoken by him.

Last verified 7 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?” Disputed. "What is the difference between a misfortune and a calamity?" — in the story this is the anonymous questioner's line; the reply credited to Benjamin Disraeli is "Well, if Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity." The joke is an anonymous French anecdote in print by 28 May 1861 (The Leeds Mercury), and was first credited to Disraeli in January 1887, six years after his death. Earliest instance of this wording: Wilfrid Meynell, Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903), 146. Via quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Benjamin Disraeli. Use the credit shown above instead.

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In context

Evoking the themes of power and justice. Theme: "What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the modern wording actually comes from

Earliest known version
The Leeds Mercury, 28 May 1861 — a French anecdote, the Seine, Prince Jérôme Napoléon
First version naming Disraeli
The Dial (Chicago), January 1887 — ‘mischance’ against ‘misfortune’
Source of this wording
Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography
Published
D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1903 — page 146

“What is the difference between a misfortune and a calamity?” — somebody asked a new definition from Disraeli. The questioner, being no literalist, but a man of liberal understanding, got the reply: “Well, if Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be a misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity.” Wilfrid Meynell, 1903 · an anecdote with no source

Two things to note. Meynell attaches no date, no place and no witness to the exchange — it sits in a run of collected table talk, twenty-two years after Disraeli’s death. And the sentence people quote as the quote is the anonymous questioner’s setup, not Disraeli’s line at all.

Digitised book, 1903
Read Meynell's 1903 biography at the Internet Archive
Quote Investigator: the full chronology, 1861 to 1913

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator ↗ places the earliest known instance in The Leeds Mercury of 28 May 1861, which presents it as a French story: the Emperor explains to his son that Prince Napoléon tumbling into the Seine would be an accident, and anyone helping him out a misfortune.
  • The same source records the joke aimed at William Gladstone in the London periodical Truth in November 1880 — by an unnamed Conservative lecturer, while Disraeli was still alive, and with nobody crediting it to him. See the chronology ↗.
  • The misfortune/calamity wording quoted today appears in Wilfrid Meynell’s 1903 biography, which the Internet Archive has digitised from the D. Appleton first printing — the passage is in the full text ↗, offered without a source of any kind.
  • Wikiquote ↗ files the line under ‘Sourced but undated’, and its only citation is that same 1903 Meynell page 146 — not a document from Disraeli’s lifetime.
Public domain

The text is free to reuse: the wording quoted here was published in Wilfrid Meynell’s Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography (D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1903), and the Internet Archive’s scan of that printing is marked not in copyright. Every earlier version in the chain — The Leeds Mercury 1861, Punch 1867, Truth 1880, The Dial 1887 — is likewise long out of copyright. Public domain is a statement about the text, not about the attribution: the words are free, but they are not reliably Disraeli’s.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How the joke found Disraeli

This is a floating anecdote — a joke that keeps its shape and swaps its victim. It travelled for decades before anyone thought to hand it to Disraeli, and for another sixteen years after that before it acquired the wording everyone now quotes.

Benjamin Disraeli no contemporary source

Nothing from Disraeli’s lifetime — no letter, speech, diary or memoir — records him saying it. Quote Investigator ↗ locates the first ascription to him in The Dial of Chicago in January 1887, six years after his death, and calls that a rather late date providing weak support for the Disraeli connection.

An anonymous French wit 1861

The template is French and twenty-six years older than the Disraeli story. QI’s chronology ↗ follows it through Napoleon III and Prince Jérôme Napoléon, the MP John Bright, a fictional baronet, a tailor named Snippson, a mother-in-law, and eventually David Lloyd George.

An unnamed Conservative lecturer November 1880

The London periodical Truth printed the joke about Gladstone in November 1880, credited only to ‘a lecturer of Conservative tendencies’. Disraeli was alive and in public life at the time, and nobody attached his name to it. Source ↗.

H. L. Mencken uncited

Mencken’s A New Dictionary of Quotations assigned the Disraeli version to about 1867, which is where that date in later reference books comes from. As QI notes ↗, he supplied no citation for it.

The thought was never Disraeli’s to begin with. It was a French joke about a Bonaparte, restocked with fresh victims for twenty years before it reached Gladstone, and it only reached Disraeli’s name in 1887 and this exact wording in 1903 — the full trail is at Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why it stuck to him anyway

The attribution is wrong, but it is not random. Disraeli and William Ewart Gladstone genuinely detested each other, and their rivalry structured British politics for a generation. A joke about wishing a man drowned needs a target the audience already dislikes, and by 1880 the British version of that target was Gladstone. Once the joke had found him, Disraeli was the obvious mouth to put it in.

There is a second reason, and it is a backhanded compliment. Disraeli’s reputation for cruelty and polish was so complete that ownerless wit drifted toward him for decades after he died — the same gravitational pull that collects stray epigrams around Mark Twain, Churchill and Wilde. A funny line with no owner tends to end up filed under the most plausible wit in the room.

A joke that outlived a prince, an emperor, an MP, a tailor and a mother-in-law before it settled on Disraeli.

The variants, in order

28 May 1861 — The Leeds Mercury: accident against misfortune, the Seine, Prince Jérôme Napoléon. The earliest instance Quote Investigator has located.

19 January 1867 — Punch: a dinner-party riddle about the MP John Bright, then about the fictional Sir Bilberry Tunks.

November 1880 — Truth: the first documented version aimed at Gladstone, told by an unnamed Conservative lecturer.

January 1887 — The Dial, Chicago: the first version credited to Disraeli, as Lord Beaconsfield, using mischance and misfortune.

1903 — Wilfrid Meynell’s biography: misfortune and calamity, the Thames, and the wording that survives today.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Justice

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Origin: What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?quoteinvestigator.com

The definitive investigation: every variant from 1861 to 1913 with its citation, and QI's verdict that the template is French and the Disraeli link weak.
Benjamin Disraeli — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Files the Thames line under 'Sourced but undated', citing only Meynell's 1903 biography, page 146.
Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography (1903)archive.org

The digitised D. Appleton printing that fixed the modern wording, marked not in copyright by the Internet Archive.
Full OCR text of Meynell's biographyarchive.org

Searchable text of the whole book — the anecdote appears verbatim, with no date, place or witness attached to it.
Benjamin Disraelien.wikipedia.org

Life dates, the two premierships and the 1876 earldom of Beaconsfield.
Gladstone and Disraeli in Oppositionhistoric-uk.com

A typical modern retelling: it quotes the Thames line as Disraeli's with no source or date, which is exactly how the attribution keeps travelling.

The name the joke found

About the man it was pinned on

Benjamin Disraeli

1804–1881 · British Prime Minister, Conservative leader and novelist

Benjamin Disraeli rose from novelist and political outsider to lead the Conservative Party and serve twice as Prime Minister — briefly in 1868, then from 1874 to 1880 — and was created 1st Earl of Beaconsfield in 1876. His long duel with the Liberal leader William Ewart Gladstone defined a generation of British politics. His reputation as a wit was so complete that ownerless jokes drifted toward him for decades after his death in 1881; this is one of them.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest instance of this wording

Wilfrid Meynell, Benjamin Disraeli: An Unconventional Biography (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1903), 146 — the earliest instance using this pair of words in Quote Investigator’s chronology. The joke template is documented from The Leeds Mercury, 28 May 1861; see Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?” (10 November 2013; 1861 citation added 22 August 2018).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘What Is the Difference Between a Misfortune and a Calamity?’?” Last verified 7 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/what-is-the-difference-between-a-misfortune-and-a-calamity/

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