Louis XIV Quotes

The most famous line in gastronomic history, 'Let them eat cake', turns out to have been an eighteenth-century cliche. According to Antonia Fraser, the French accused every foreign queen of saying it, beginning in 1670 with the wife of Louis XIV, Marie Theresa.

Clergy had not only identified themselves with the repression of free thought, and of physical science … but that they had proved themselves utterly unfit, for centuries past, to exercise any censorship whatsoever over the thoughts of men: that they had identified themselves with the cause of darkness, not of light; with persecution and torture … the clergy interfered perpetually with the sanctity of family life, as well as with the welfare of the state; that their evil counsels, and specially those of the Jesuits, had been patent and potent causes of much of the misrule and misery of Louis XIV.'s and XV.'s reigns

Essentially, Louis XIV created exclusivity. If we look at how we live our lives today, many of us are members of clubs or gyms. We search out exclusivity. He created the world of fashion at Versailles.

To walk into the hall of mirrors of Versailles as Louis XIV and deliver a monologue on your own in an empty hall of mirrors is like no other experience.

In the rich countries the poor expect a quantity and quality of commodities beyond the dreams of Louis XIV, while many of the so-called developing countries enjoy much higher economic growth rates than those of industrialized countries at a similar stage of their own histories.

France is sunk in grief, the people are suffering and the Monarch cries out. Parliament is demanding the Estates-General and the Nation cannot come to an agreement. There is no consensus on electing these assemblies. All these altercations are hobbling the welfare that the State expects from these lights.

I like people who don't accept boundaries. Like Florence Nightingale. And Napoleon or Louis XIV, though I'm not sure how much I'd have liked to meet them. I admire people who aren't circumscribed by circumstance.

Dance is very, very old. With Louis XIV at Versailles is where ballet started.

When Louis XIV assumed the reins of government France suddenly and wonderfully came to her maturity; it was as if the whole nation had burst into splendid flower.

The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.

It ordered to us to plant the cross with the first village, to produce there the fruits of Christianity, and the ecu of France, to ensure it the authority of Its Majesty and the French domination; having made our first unloading at the village of Holy-Marie-of-Sault, we made assemble the close and distant nations, fourteen, to which we made interpret our commission by the sior Nicolas Perrot, making draw up a cross and a wood of cedar to which we raised the weapons of France, while saying, by three times and aloud, the name of Louis XIV: We take possession of all the country until the Sea-of-South

A cravat is the only item of named after Croatians. Balkan mercenaries were brought to Paris by Louis XIV. Their strange and exotic attire attracted the French bon hommes, who were wearing formal ruffs, and who immediately took to the simple and relaxed military cloth tied at the neck.

I'm reading "The Sunset of a Splendid Century" by W.H. Lewis. He was C.S. Lewis's brother. He wrote two books about the French court of Louis XIV that are incredibly detailed. They are books that on every page you say, "Wow, think of that."

If I could have picked an era to have lived, I think I would've loved to have been one of Louis XIV's mistresses. They were so fantastic and aristocratic, and they had so much power. And he was such a renaissance man. I think I would've fit into that nicely.

I learned French in Tunis, along with Arabic. I also learned French history. I knew the entire history of the kings of France. And I was fascinated by Versailles.

The art of taxation consists in plucking the goose as to obtain the largest amount of feathers with the least possible amount of hissing.

Yes, SIRE, you are being misled, the goodwill of princes is being abused; even the Nobility itself is in the wrong.

Well done, your Majesty!

Purcell is a composer who had a formative influence on British music - even The Who now cite him as an influence. There's an intense, dirty harmony, but there's a Louis XIV kind of elan and style, too. He had the melancholy DNA of our national folk heritage.

The King, long in the habit of drowning his cares in wine, plunges deeper and deeper; the Queen cries out but, but sins on.

[Corneille] was inspired by Roman authors and Roman spirit, Racine with delicacy by the polished court of Louis XIV.