Monarchy Quotes - Page 3

• Anyone who has walked through the deserted palaces of Versailles or Vienna realise how much of a part of the life of a nation is lost when a monarchy is abolished. If buckingham palace and windsor castle were transformed into museums, if one politician competed against another for president of the republic, Britain would be a sadder and less interesting place. Our politicians are not men such as could challenge more than a thousand years of history.

  William Rees-Mogg

  Men, Museums, Years

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• Saudia Arabia takes in half a trillion dollars every year in oil revenue, and the country has a population smaller than New York state, but when your system of government is an eleventh century monarchy, someone's going to end up poor, and it's not gonna be the guy whose first name is King.

  Craig Ferguson

  Country, New York, Kings

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• I'm not a republican any more. Not so voraciously anyway - I'm not in favour of the concept of monarchy, but I do see the good in it if there's a good person in the role.

  Helen Mirren

  Roles, Favour, Republican

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• Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king.

  Henry Ford

  Kings, Business, Men

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• Citizenship is what makes a republic - monarchies can get along without it.

  Mark Twain

  Republic, Citizenship, World Citizen

  Mark Twain (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Mark Twain (Illustrated)”, p.7247, Delphi Classics

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• They that are discontented under monarchy, call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy, call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy, call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government; and yet I think no man believes, that want of government, is any new kind of government.

  Thomas Hobbes

  Believe, Men, Thinking

  'Leviathan' (1651) pt. 2, ch. 19

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• If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.

  Daniel Ellsberg

  Hero, Waiting, Doe

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• The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

  Harold Wilson

  Labor, Industry

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• In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption.

  Raoul Vaneigem

  Kings, Equality, House

  Guy Debord, Ivan Chtcheglov, Asger Jorn, Raoul Vaneigem, Mustapha Khayati (2014). “Situationism: A Compendium”, p.141, Bread and Circuses Publishing

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• The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.

  Walter Bagehot

  Strong, Government, Political

  The English Constitution "The Monarchy" (1867)

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• The revolution has overthrown the monarchy, true! But perhaps this means that the revolution simply has driven the skin disease inside the organism.

  Maxim Gorky

  Mean, Skins, Disease

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• We owe gratitude to France, justice to England, good will to all, and subservience to none ... it was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gratitude, Fall, Agency

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”, p.372

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• I've spent a bit of time with the Prince of Wales, who I respect greatly. I'd give two cheers for the Monarchy.

  Sting

  Respect, Cheer, Two

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• The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others.

  Walter Bagehot

  Kings, Rights, Three

  The English Constitution "The Monarchy (continued)" (1867)

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• Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."

  Benjamin Franklin

  Doctors, Philadelphia, Independence

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• All Governments rest mainly on public opinion, and to that of his own subjects every wise Sovereign will look. The opinion of his subjects will force a Sovereign to do his duty, and by that opinion will he be exalted or depressed in the politics of the world.

  Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon

  Wise, Government, Public Opinion

  Trial of John Vint and others, 27 How. St. Tr. 640, 1799.

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• Strip the human race, absolutely naked, and it would be a real democracy. But the introduction of even a rag of tiger skin, or a cowtail, could make a badge of distinction and be the beginning of a monarchy.

  Mark Twain

  Real, Race, Clothes

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (1948). “Mark Twain at your fingertips”

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• There are important arguments to be made about the relative merits of an hereditary or an elected head of state: but not at the level of the human frailties of particular monarchs or presidents. No one seriously contends that the American presidency should be abolished because Bill Clinton is a self-confessed adulterer. So why should the abolition of the British monarchy be contemplated because the same is true of Prince Charles?

  David Cannadine

  Self, Important, President

  David Cannadine (1998). “History in Our Time”, Penguin Group USA

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• I was hoping to do an impressionist painting, but I wanted a good likeness and I wanted to create a feeling of the lady as a person, as a human being rather than as a figurehead for the monarchy and a pomp-and-circumstance sort of formal portrait. I wanted more of a relaxed portrait.

  Rolf Harris

  Feelings, Portraits, Painting

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• I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either.

  John Adams

  Running, Democracies Have, Long

  John Adams (2001). “The Political Writings of John Adams”, p.405, Regnery Publishing

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• Be always faithful to me, as I always desire to keep you in peace; and if there have been wiser kings, none has ever loved you more than I have.

  Elizabeth I

  Loyalty, Peace, Kings

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• People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.

  Friedrich Engels

  Taken, Thinking, Reality

  Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (1959). “Basic writings on politics and philosophy”, Anchor

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• Hereditary monarchy offers numerous advantages for America. It is the only form of government able to unify a heterogeneous people. Thanks to centuries of dynastic marriage, the family tree of every royal house is an ethnic grab bag with something for everybody. We need this badly; America is the only country in the world where you can suffer culture shock without leaving home. We can't go on much longer depending upon disasters like Pearl Harbor and the Iranian hostage-taking to "bring us together.

  Florence King

  Country, Home, Government

  Florence King (1990). “Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye”, p.125, Macmillan

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• Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.

  Glenn Greenwald

  Thinking, Government, Ideas

  "Glenn Greenwald Slams 'F**king Hawk' Hillary Clinton as 'Banal, Corrupted'" by Randy Hall, www.newsbusters.org. May 12, 2014.

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• The United States of America or the Western countries, they don't have a problem with Islamists as long as they are neoliberal capitalists and promoting the economic order. And the best example is the petro-monarchies. The petro-monarchies, they don't want democracy. They say there is no democracy in Islam. But they are within the economic system.

  Tariq Ramadan

  Country, Order, America

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