Monarchy Quotes - Page 2

• No. I am not a royalist. Not at all. I am definitely a republican in the British sense of the word. I just don't see the use of the monarchy though I'm fierce patriot. I'm proud proud proud of being English, but I think the monarchy symbolizes a lot of what was wrong with the country.

  Daniel Radcliffe

  Country, Thinking, Use

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• Those who imagine that a politician would make a better figurehead than a hereditary monarch might perhaps make the acquaintance of more politicians.

  Margaret Thatcher

  Might, Imagine, Politician

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• A monarchy is the most expensive of all forms of government, the regal state requiring a costly parade, and he who depends on his own power to rule, must strengthen that power by bribing the active and enterprising whom he cannot intimidate.

  James F. Cooper

  Power, Government, Intimidating

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• We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy.

  Ezra Stiles

  Aristocracy, Chance, Hereditary

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• The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.

  Friedrich Engels

  Class, Republic, States

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• The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.

  Walter Bagehot

  Religious, People, Religion

  'The English Constitution' (1867) 'The Cabinet'

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• A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

  Fisher Ames

  Rocks, Feet, Water

  Attributed to Ames, speaking in the House of Representatives, 1795; quoted by R. W. Emerson in 'Essays' (2nd series, 1844) no. 7, but not traced in Ames's speeches

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• The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.

  Samuel Johnson

  Government, Ordinary, Royalty

  Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt”, p.45

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• As yourselves your empires fall, and every kingdom hath a grave.

  William Habington

  Fall, Kingdoms, Empires

  William Habington, “Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam”

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• When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing.

  Damien Hirst

  Real, British Monarchy, Kind

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• I hope you are looking forward to the tsunami of industrial effluent which is coming your way in the first quarter of the new year. You will not be able to avoid it, unless you are Helen Keller. One way or another, Wills and Kate are going to get you.

  Rod Liddle

  New Year, Years, Able

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• A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.

  Ben Jonson

  Eye, Government, Letters

  Ben Jonson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ben Jonson (Illustrated)”, p.3197, Delphi Classics

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• Every subject's duty is the Kings, but every subject's soul is his own.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Freedom, Soul

  'Henry V' (1599) act 4, sc. 1, l. [189]

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• Constitutions become the ultimate tyranny," Paul said. "They’re organized power on such a scale as to be overwhelming. The constitution is social power mobilized and it has no conscience. It can crush the highest and the lowest, removing all dignity and individuality. It has an unstable balance point and no limitations.

  Frank Herbert

  Crush, Individuality, Balance

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Dune Messiah”, p.54, Penguin

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• Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry.

  Martin Luther

  Art, Thinking, Imagination

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• Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution - perhaps the first modern political institution.

  Adam Gopnik

  Hangover, Believe, Reality

  The New Yorker, September 29, 1997.

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• But for all those who don't want the Queen there are easily as many who don't want a President and even more who certainly would not want one if they knew who it would be. As you can readily see, I have given more thought to this subject than most and I have reached my own conclusion. God save the Queen.

  Dalton Camp

  Queens, President, Would Be

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• An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Long, Doe, Assassins

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.7, 谷月社

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• I think the monarchy today is. . . mildly interesting and largely harmless. I can't find I can get very heated about it. In the next couple of generations, it is bound to go.

  Hilary Mantel

  Couple, Thinking, Interesting

  Source: newrepublic.com

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• America is not a democracy, it's an absolute monarchy ruled by King Kid. In a nation of immigrants, the child is automatically more of an American than his parents. Americans regard children as what Mr. Hudson in Upstairs, Downstairs called betters. Aping their betters, American adults do their best to turn themselves into children. Puerility exercises droit de seigneur everywhere.

  Florence King

  Kings, Children, Kids

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.30, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Monarchy can easily be "debunked," but watch the faces, mark well the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach - men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film stars instead: For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.

  C. S. Lewis

  Beautiful, Spiritual, Stars

  "Equality". The Spectator, Volume CLXXI, archive.spectator.co.uk. August 27, 1943.

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• If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Democracy, Too Much, Incline

  Alexander Hamilton (1850). “The works of Alexander Hamilton: comprising his correspondence, and his political and official writings, exclusive of the Federalist, civil and military. Published from the original manuscripts deposited in the Department of State, by order of the Joint Library Committee of Congress”, p.417

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• In on summer they have done their business... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals.

  Edmund Burke

  Summer, Art, Army

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• The three most ancient opinions concerning God are Anarchia, Polyarchia, and Monarchia. The first two are the sport of the children of Hellas, and may they continue to be so. For Anarchy is a thing without order; and the Rule of Many is factious, and thus anarchical, and thus disorderly. For both these tend to the same thing, namely disorder; and this to dissolution, for disorder is the first step to dissolution. But Monarchy is what we hold in honor.

  Gregory of Nyssa

  Sports, Children, Order

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• As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Political, Honor, Would Be

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