Russia is a great bicephalic creature, having one head European and the other Asiatic; but with the persistent habit of turning its European face to the East and its Asiatic face to the West.

In conversation with M. E. Grant Duff, at York House (20 July 1888). Notes from a Diary, 1886–1888 (London: John Murray, 1900), vol. 2, p. 139. Variations of a very similar phrase are often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli; e.g. Eileen Bigland, Laughing Odyssey (London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1937), ch. 6, sec. 4 (p. 239): "But what was it Disraeli had said about Russia? That she had two faces, an Asiatic face which looked always towards Europe; and a European face which gazed always towards Asia."