Michel de Montaigne Quotes

Kings ought never to be seen upon the stage. In the abstract, they are very disagreeable characters: it is only while living that they are 'the best of kings'. It is their power, their splendour, it is the apprehension of the personal consequences of their favour or their hatred that dazzles the imagination and suspends the judgement of their favourites or their vassals; but death cancels the bond of allegiance and of interest; and seen AS THEY WERE, their power and their pretensions look monstrous and ridiculous.

QUEEN, n. A woman by whom the realm is ruled when there is a king, and through whom it is ruled when there is not.

Tis so much to be a king, that he only is so by being so.

A weak King must be what other Kings have been; a strong King is himself, and from then on the meaning of the name of King is changed.

A man's a man. But when you see a king, you see the work of many thousand men.

It is no bad thing to be a king-to see one's house enriched and one's authority enhanced.

War is the trade of Kings.

Kings are the publick Pillars of the State Born to sustain and prop the Nation's weight.

Kings govern by means of popular assemblies only when they cannot do without them.

[There] are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings.

The king has no equal within his realm.

You are for kings the ears with which they hear, the eyes with which they see, the tongues with which they speak, the hands with which they strike.

It is an old prerogative of kings to govern everything but their passions.

Kings are the peoples Idols, creatures of their own making

Not all the water in the rough rude sea Can wash the balm from an anointed King.

I was thinking, "So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now.

Kings are the slaves of history.

Any society's upper-crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private. It is dethroned by public acts.

Princes rule the people, and their own passions rule Princes; but Providence can over-rule the whole, and draw the instruments of his inscrutable purposes from the vices, no less than the virtues of Kings.

A king is always a king - and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between them and rational converse

If I am an empress, he is the only man worthy of being my emperor.

When they're standing right in front of you, kings are a kind of speech impediment.

What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect that private men enjoy! And what have kings that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony?

A King (as such) is not a great man. He has great power, but it is not his own.

Democracy is always the work of kings. Ashes, which in themselves are sterile, fertilize the land they are cast upon.