Feudalism Quotes

No Bishops, no King.

I have no enemies, father. I have had them all shot.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley of ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment.

China has a history of thousands of years of feudalism and is still lacking in socialist democracy and socialist legality. We are now working earnestly to cultivate socialist democracy and socialist legality. Only in this way can we solve the problem.

One of Ivan the Terrible's mistakes was to overlook the five great feudal families. If he had annihilated those five families, there would definitely have been no Time of Troubles. But Ivan the Terrible would execute someone and then spend a long time repenting and praying. God got in his way in this matter. He ought to have been still more decisive!

Democracy is of great importance for the working class in its struggle for freedom against the capitalists. But ... it is only one of the stages in the course of development from feudalism to capitalism, and from capitalism to Communism.

The Russian Czars did a great deal that was bad. They robbed and enslaved the people. They waged wars and seized territories in the interest of landowners. But they did one thing that was good—they amassed an enormous state.

At regular intervals in Chinese history it suffers complete collapse and the central government disintegrates.

The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences.

The Duke’s Laws

The king is from God, the law from the king.

The concept of a 'job' is pretty recent. If you go back a few hundred years, everyone was either a slave or a serf, or living off slave or serf labor to pursue science or philosophy or art.

In England, the sovereignty resides exclusively in the person or individual who is king. All Englishmen are his subjects. And the highest peer in the realm... has no share in the sovereignty.

They say that it were great reproof to the king to take again what he has given, so that they will not suffer him to have his own good, nor land, nor forfeiture, nor any other good but they ask it from him, or else they take bribes of others to get it for him.

The ferocious inroads of the Normans scared many weak and timid persons into servitude.

In all ages hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns on the heads of thieves, called kings.

In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords ... to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles…. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose.

One who takes on the humiliation of the State Is called a Ruler: worthy of offering sacrifices to the gods of earth millet; One who takes on himself the calamity of the State Is called a King: worthy of dominion over the entire Empire.

The greater part of the governments on earth may be termed monarchical aristocracies, or hereditary dominions independent of the people.

The Chinese state is constructed in an entirely different way from western states. Unlike European states, for over a millennium the Chinese state has not been obliged to compete for power with rivals such as the church, the aristocracy or merchants.

There is only one class in the state, the Volk, (the people), and the king belongs to this class as well as the peasant

In the ancient world, taxes were paid in kind: landowners paid in crops or livestock; the landless paid with their labor. Taxing trade made medieval monarchs rich and funded the early-modern state.

it would be impossible to liberate the serf otherwise than by endowing him with land.

In the past, civilization has been a heritage enjoyed by a few upon a basis of the brutalization of the vast multitude …. nation aims at a civilization of the whole resting upon the whole, and only made possible by the educated co-operation of an educated whole.

When socialism comes into power, the Roman Church will advocate socialism with the same vigor [with which] it is now favoring feudalism and slavery.