King quotes

  • Inveni fateor in rege monachum, claustrum in curia, in palatio monasterii disciplinam. I confess that I found in the king a monk, in the court a cloister, and in the palace the discipline of a monastery.

    -St Aelred of Riveaulx   d.1167
    ?c.1160  Lament for David I, King of Scotland. Quoted in  John Fordoun Chronicle of Scotland (c.1384), bk.5, ch.43.

  • Quhen Alysaunder oure kyng wes dede, That Scotland led in lauche and le, Away wes sons of alle and brede, Off wyne and wax, of gamyn and gle; Oure gold wes changyd in to lede. Cryst, borne in to virgynyte, Succour Scotland, and remede, That stad is in perplexyte.

    -Anonymous
    c.1286  Lines said to have been written after the death of Alexander II of Scotland, the earliest extant piece of Scottish verse. Quoted in the Original Chronicle of  Andrew Wyntoun (c.1420), bk.7.

  • Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, Went across the border to get a drink of rye. When the rye was opened, theYanks began to sing, 'God bless America, but God save the King!'

    -Anonymous
    c.1919  Ditty current in Canada, referring to  Americans crossing the border to drink during Prohibition. The Duke of  Windsor, later Edward VIII, heard it during his tour of Canada (1919) and repeatedit to his father, George V, onhis return, as he recalledin A King's Story (1951).

  • Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium, Sanguinisque pretiosi, Quem in mundi pretium Fructus ventris generosi Rex effudit gentium. Now, my tongue, the mystery telling Of the glorious Body sing, And the Blood, all price excelling, Which the Gentiles' Lord and King, In aVirgin's womb once dwelling, Shed for this world's ransoming.

    - StThomas Aquinas
      Pange Lingua Gloriosi, known as the Corpus Christi hymn (translated by J M Neale et al).

  • Marie Hamilton's to the kirk gane, Wi'ribbons in her hair; The king thought mair o'Marie Hamilton Than ony that were there.

    -Ballads
    'Marie Hamilton', opening lines.

  • The king sits in Dunfermline town, Drinking the blude-red wine; 'O whare will I get a skeely skipper, To sail this new ship of mine?'

    -Ballads
    'Sir Patrick Spens', opening lines.

  • The chief defect of Henry King Was chewing little bits of string.

    - (Joseph) Hilaire Pierre Belloc
      Cautionary  Tales,'Henry King'.

  • In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Judges17:6.

  •    And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said,O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee,OAbsalom, my son, my son!

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel18:33.

  • Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways: now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel 8:5.

  • God save the king.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Samuel10:24.

  • A certain man drewa bowat a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Kings 22:34.

  • Sowill Igo in untothe king, which isnot according tothe law: and if I perish, I perish.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Esther 4:16.

  •    Lift up your heads,O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The L strong and mighty, the L mighty in battle.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDPsalms 24:7^8.

  • The king's heart is in the hand of the L, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDProverbs 21:1.

  • Better is a poor and a wise child than an old and foolish king, who will no more be admonished.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes 4:13.

  • Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes10:20.

  • The first wrote,Wine is the strongest. The second wrote, The king is strongest. The third wrote,Women are strongest: but above all thingsTruth beareth away the victory.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Esdras 3:10^12.

  • Honoura physicianwiththehonourdueuntohim for the uses whichye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. For of the most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour of the king. 108

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Ecclesiasticus 38:1^2.

  • And whenhewas atthelast gasp, hesaid,Thou likea fury takest us out of this present life, but the King of the world shall raise us up, who have died for his laws, unto everlasting life.

    -Bible (Apocrypha)
    Maccabees 7:9.

  • Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying,Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 2:1^2.

  • Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying,Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 2:1^2.

  • And the King shall answer and say unto them,Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 25:40.

  •    He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 27:42.

  • Thensaidthe chief priests oftheJewsto Pilate,Writenot, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews.Pilate answered,What I have written I have written.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St  John19:21^2.

  • Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Peter 2:17.

  • And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written,.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDSRevelation19:16.

  • When Sir Joshua Reynolds died All Nature was degraded; The King dropp'd a tear into the Queen's ear, And all his pictures faded.

    -William Blake
    c.1808  Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses.

  • Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing, 'Onward!'the sailors cry; Carry the lad that's born to be king Over the sea to Skye.

    - Sir Harold Edwin Boulton
      'Skye Boat Song'. The date and authorship of the original song are uncertain, but this is now the most famous version.

  • The King to Oxford sent a troop of horse, ForTories own no argument but force; With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent, For Whigs admit no force but argument.

    -William Browne
    Literary  Anecdotes.

  • Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.

    - Edmund Burke
      Letter to William Smith, 29  Jan.

  • It was a'for our rightfu' king, We left fair Scotland's strand.

    - Robert Burns
      'It was a' for our rightfu' king', stanza1.

  • I'm king of the world.

    -James Cameron
      Accepting his Best Director Oscar for Titanic (1997), 23 Mar, an allusion to a line in Titanic.

  • Here lies a king, that ruled as he thought fit The universal monarchy of wit.

    -Thomas Carew
      'An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul's, Dr.  John Donne'.

  • Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed.

    - George Chapman
      Bussy d'Ambois, act1, sc.1.

  • Then the wet, winding roads, Brown bogs with black water; And my thoughts on white ships And the King o' Spain's daughter.

    - Padraic Colum
      'A Drover'.

  • In Mexico the gods ruled, the priests interpreted and interposed, and the people obeyed.In Spain, the priests ruled, the king interpreted and interposed, and the gods obeyed. A nuance in an ideological difference is a wide chasm.

    - Richard Condon
    A  Talent for Loving, bk.1, ch.6.

  • : If we beat the King ninety-nine times, yet he is King still so will his posterity be after him; but if the King beat us once we shall be hanged, and our posterity made slaves. : My Lord, if this be so, why did we take up arms at first? This is against fighting hereafter. If so, let us make peace, be it never so base.

    - Oliver Cromwell
      EARLOFMANCHESTEROLIVER CROMWELL1644  Recorded in The Calendar of State Papers,10 Nov.

  • Wha the deil hae we got for a King, But a wee, wee German lairdie!

    - Allan Cunningham
      Poems and Songs,'The Wee, Wee German Lairdie', stanza1.

  • Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers'seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late schoolboys, and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride, Call countryants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

    -John Donne
    c.1595^1605  'The Sun Rising', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

  • For God's sake, hold your tongue, and let me love, Or chide my palsy, or my gout, My five grey hairs, or ruined fortune flout, With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve, Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his honour, or his grace, Or the King's real, or his stamped face Contemplate; what you will, approve, So you will let me love.

    -John Donne
    c.1595^1605  'The Canonization', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

  •    Upon Saint Crispin's day Fought was this noble fray, Which fame did not delay To England to carry; Oh, when shall English men With such acts fill a pen, Or England breed again Such a King Harry?

    - Michael Drayton
      Of the Battle of  Agincourt. Poems Lyrick and Pastorall,'To the Cambro-Britons and Their Harp, His Ballad of  Agincourt'.

  • The singeing of the King of Spain's beard.

    - Sir Francis Drake
      His description of an expedition to Cadiz, quoted in Francis Bacon ConsiderationsTouching aWar with Spain (1629).

  • Forasmuch as there isgreat noise in the city caused by hustling over large balls, from which many evils may arise, which God forbid, we command and forbid on behalf of the King, on pain of imprisonment, such game to be used in the city in future.

    -Edward II
      Royal proclamation, banning football from the streets of London.

  • I know that Ihavethe bodyof a weak and feeble woman, but I havetheheart and stomach of a kingand a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm.

    -Elizabeth I
       Address at Tilbury on the approach of the Spanish Armada.

  • To be a King and towear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.

    -Elizabeth I
      Address to parliament. Quoted in G R Elton Renaissance and Reformation1300^1648 (2nd edn,1968), p.134.

  • God the Omnipotent! King, who ordainest Great windsThy clarions, lightningsThy sword.

    -John Ellerton
      Hymn (with Henry Fothergill Chorley,1808^72).

  • In regione caecorum rex est luscus. In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

    - Desiderius originally  Gerrit Gerritszoon Erasmus
    c.1500  Adages, bk.3, century 4, no.96.

  • Let a king recall that it is better to improve his realm than to increase his territory.

    - Desiderius originally  Gerrit Gerritszoon Erasmus
      Querela Pacis.

  • Had every Christian in Hitler's Europe followed the example of the king of Denmark and decided to put on the yellow star, there would be today neither despair in the church nor talk of the death of God.

    - Emil L Fackenheim
      Quest for Past and Future.

  • Mr Creston Clarke played King Lear at theTabor Grand last night. All through five acts of Shakespeare's tragedy he played the king as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace.

    - Eugene Field
    c.1880   Attributed review in the Denver Post.

  • Somepunishment seemspreparing fora peoplewhoare so ungratefully abusing the best Constitution and the best king that any nation was ever blessed with.

    - Benjamin Franklin
      Speech in London during the Wilkes riots, May.

  • The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well: Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days!

    - Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
      Lord Mountarat's song, Iolanthe, act 2.

  • It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.

    - Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck) Gilbert
      Pirate King's song, The Pirates of Penzance, act1.

  • O worship the King, all glorious above; O gratefully sing his power and his love: Our Shield and Defender, the Ancient of Days, Pavilioned in splendour, and girded with praise.

    - Sir Robert Grant
      'O worship the King, all glorious above', collected in Sacred Poems (1839).

  • Ruin seize thee, ruthless King! Confusion on thy banners wait, Tho'fanned by Conquest's crimson wing They mock the air with idle state.

    -Thomas Gray
      The Bard.  A Pindaric Ode, l.1^4.

  • Let all the world in ev'ry corner sing My God and King.

    - George Herbert
    'Antiphon', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  • Teach me, my God and King, In all thingsThee to see, And what I do in any thing To do it as forThee.

    - George Herbert
    'The Elixir', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  •    King of glory, King of peace I will loveThee And that love may never cease, I will moveThee.

    - George Herbert
    'Praise', collected in The Temple, Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (published posthumously,1633).

  • On the 5th November we began our Parliament, to which the King should have come in person but refrained, through a practice but that morning discovered. The plot was to have blown up the King†at oneinstanttohaveruinedthewhole estateand kingdom of England.

    - Sir Edward Hoby
      Letter to the British  Ambassador to Brussels, describing the Gunpowder Plot,19 Nov.

  • He was my crowned King, and if the Parliamentary authority of England set the crown upon a stock, I will fight for that stock: And as I fought then for him, I will fight for you, when you are established by the said authority.

    -Norfolk
      Explaining before the future Henry VII his reasons for siding with Richard III at Bosworth, 22  Aug. Quoted in William Camden Remains Concerning Britain (1605).

  • Sous l'habit d'un valet, les passions d'un roi. Beneath the clothing of a manservant, the passions of a king.

    -Victor Marie Hugo
      Ruy Blas, act1, sc.3.

  • This [Magna Carta] has been forced from the King. It constitutes an insult to the Holy See, a serious weakening of the royal power, a disgrace to the English nation, a danger to all Christendom, since this civil war obstructs the crusade. Therefore†we condemn the charter and forbid the King to keep it, or the barons and their supporters to make him do so, on pain of excommunication.

    -Pope Innocent III originally Lotario de' Conti di Segni
      Papal Bull, 24  Aug.

  • At the door Dante turned round violently and shouted down the room, her cheeks flushed and quivering with rage: Devil out of hell! We won! We crushed him to death! Fiend! The door slammed behind her. Mr Casey, freeing his arms from his holders, suddenly bowed his head on his hands with a sob of pain. Poor Parnell! he cried loudly. My dead king!

    -James Augustine Aloysius Joyce
      A Portrait of the Artist as aYoung Man.

  • Only in America could a Don King happen.

    - Don King
    Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990). King adopted 'Only in  America'as a catchphrase, billing himself as Don'Only in  America' King.

  • The Man who Would be King.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Wee Willie Winkie, title of short story.

  •    You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy† In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women.You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy.Do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.

    - 1st Earl Herbert
      Message to the soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force, reported in The Times,19  Aug.

  • How glorious it would be in the eyes of God and men, if we managed to hunt the Catholics from England, follow them to France, and, like the bold King of Sweden, rouse the Protestants in France, plant our religion in Paris by agreement or force, and go from there to Rome to chase the Antichrist and burn the town whence superstition comes.

    - David Leslie
      Said to Lord Hume, Council of Scottish Nobles,  Aug.

  • Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven; To his feet thy tribute bring. Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, Who like me his praise should sing?

    - Henry Francis Lyte
      'Praise, my Soul, the King of Heaven'.

  • Theyall were looking for a king To slay their foes and lift them high: Thou cam'st, a little baby thing That made a woman cry.

    - George MacDonald
      'That Holy Thing', stanza1.

  •    And so kyng Lodgreaunce delyverd hys doughtir Gwenyver unto Merlion, and theTable Rounde.

    - SirThomas   d.1471 Malory
    c.1470  Morte d'Arthur, bk.3, ch.1.

  • Yet som men say in many partys of Inglonde that kynge Arthur ys nat dede†and men say that he shall com agayne, and he shall win the Holy Crosse.Yet I woll nat say that hit shall be so, but rather Iwoldesey: here inthys there ys wrytten uppon the tumbe thys: [Here lies Arthur, the once and future king].

    - SirThomas   d.1471 Malory
    HIC IACET ARTHURUS, REXQUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS.c.1470  Morte d'Arthur, bk.21, ch.7.

  • A god is not so glorious as a king. I think the pleasure they enjoy in Heaven, Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth. To wear a crown enchased with pearl and gold, Whose virtues carry with it life and death; To ask and have, command and be obeyed; When looks breed love, with looks to gain the prize, Such power attractive shines in princes'eyes!

    - Christopher Marlowe
      Tamburlaine the Great (published1590), pt.1, act 2, sc.5.

  • 'My father is deceased.Come,Gaveston, And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.' Ah, words that make me surfeit with delight! What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston Than live and be the favourite of a king? Sweet prince, I come; these, these thyamorous lines Might have enforced me to have swum from France, And, like Leander, gasped upon the sand, So thou would'st smile, and take me in thy arms.

    - Christopher Marlowe
    c.1591  Gaveston is reading a letter from King Edward. Edward II (published1594), act1, sc.1.

  • And now, when I have summed up all my store, Thinking (so I myself deceive) So rich a chaplet thence to weave As never yet the King of Glory wore, Alas! I find the serpent old, That, twining in his speckled breast, About the flowers disguised does fold With wreaths of fame and interest.

    - Andrew Marvell
    c.1650^1652  'The Coronet' (published1681).

  • If the king loves music, there is little wrong in the land.

    -Mencius properly Meng-tzu
    c  BC   Discourses.

  • The King said 'Butter, eh?' And bounced out of bed.

    - A(lan) A(lexander) Milne
      When We Were VeryYoung,'The King's Breakfast'.

  • This is the month, and this the happy morn Wherein the son of Heaven's eternal King, Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring.

    -John Milton
      'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity','The Hymn', stanza1.

  • A king who wants to maintain an army can never have too much gold.

    - SirThomas More
      Utopia (English translation1556), bk.1.

  • A king has no dignity when he exercises authority over beggars, only when he rules over prosperous and happy subjects.

    - SirThomas More
      Utopia (English translation1556), bk.1.

  • This hath not offended the king. 597

    - SirThomas More
      Said on the scaffold as he drew his beard to one side. Attributed in William Roper Life of Sir Thomas More (ed E  V Hitchcock,1935).

  • I started off in films as a kinga French king, admittedly, but nevertheless a king in MarieAntoinetteand stayed in that sort of income bracket.

    - Robert Morley
    Quoted in The Best of Robert Morley (1981).

  • Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king, Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

    -Thomas Nashe
      Summer's Last Will and Testament,'Song'.

  • All glory, laud and honour To Thee,Redeemer, King, To whom the lips of children Made sweet hosannas ring.

    -J(ames) M(ason) Neale
      'All Glory, Laud and Honour'.

  • My first impression is of a slightly bearded spinster: my second isof Willie King madeup like Philip II: my thirdof some thin little bird, peeking, crooked, reserved, violent and timid. 614

    - Sir Harold Nicolson
      On meeting  James  Joyce. Diary entry, 30  Jul.

  •    Ronald Reagan†wasn't without leadership ability, but he lacked most of the management skills that a President needs. But let me give him his due: he would have made a hell of a king.

    -Thomas P known as  'Tip' O'Neill
      Man of the House.

  • EŁ  loquence quipersuade par douceur, non par empire, en tyran, non en roi. Eloquence should persuade gently, not by force or like a tyrant or king.

    - Blaise Pascal
    c.1654^1662  Pense  es, pt.1, no.15.

  • This day my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with large powers and privileges, by thename of Pennsylvania; anametheking wouldgive it in honor of my father.

    -William Penn
      Letter to RobertTurner,14 Mar.

  • I went out to Charing Cross to see Major-General Harrison hanged, drawn and quarteredwhich was done therehe looking as cheerfully as any man could do in that condition† Thus it was my chance to see the King beheaded at Whitehall and to see the first blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King at Charing Cross.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry,13 Oct.

  • But methought it lessened my esteem of a king, that he should not be able to command the rain.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry,19 Jul.

  • I see it is impossible for the King to have things done as cheap as other men.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry, 21 Jul.

  • To the King'sTheatre, where we saw Midsummer Night's Dream, which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I ever saw in my life.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry, 29 Sep.

  • To theTennis Court, and there saw the King playat tennis and others; but to see how the King's play was extolled, without any cause at all, was a loathsome sight.

    - Samuel Pepys
      Diary entry, 4 Jan.

  • Now it came to pass†that theTartars made them a King whosenamewas Chinghis Kaan[Genghis Khan].Hewas a manof great worth, and of great ability, and valour. And as soon as the news that he had been chosen King was spread abroad through those countries, all theTartars in the world came to him and owned him for their Lord.

    - Marco Polo
    c.1310  Quoted in Col. HenryYule (ed and trans) The Book of Ser Marco Polo, theVenetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East (1871), 2 vols.

  • Not least among the qualities ina great King is a capacity to permit his Ministers to serve him.

    -Cardinal Richelieu
      Testament Politique.

  • God bless our good and gracious King Whose promise none relies on, Who never said a foolish thing Nor ever did a wise one.

    -JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
    Of Charles II (published1707).The verse was later changed to an epitaph ('Here lies a great and mighty king†').

  • The consumer, so it is said, is the king†each is a voter who uses his money as votes to get the things done that he wants done.

    - Paul Anthony Samuelson
      Economics.

  • Still is thy name in high account, And still thy verse has charms, Sir David Lindesay of the Mount, Lord Lion King-at-arms!

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Marmion, canto 4, stanza 7.

  • 'I dinna ken muckle about the law,'answered Mrs Howden; 'but I ken, when we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o'our ain, we could aye peeble them wi'stanes when they werena gude bairnsBut naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon.'

    - Sir Walter Scott
      The Heart of Midlothian, ch.4.

  • Carle, now the King's come! Carle, now the King's come! Thou shalt dance, and I will sing, Carle, now the King's come!

    - Sir Walter Scott
      'Carle, Now the King's Come', written in celebration of George IV's visit to Edinburgh.

  • Every law is a contract between the king and the people and therefore to be kept.

    -John Selden
    TableTalk (published1689).

  • There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles; he supportshiskingon loyal principles and cuts off hishead on republican principles.

    - George Bernard Shaw
      The Man of Destiny.

  • An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'England in1819' (published in1839).

  • 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Ozymandias'.

  • The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man Passionless?no, yet free from guilt or pain, Which were, for his will made or suffered them, Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, From chance, and death, and mutability, The clogs of that which else might oversoar The loftiest star of unascended heaven, Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      Prometheus Unbound, act 3, sc.4, l.193^204.

  • The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall, The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry, The builder oak, sole king of forests all, The aspen good for staves, the cypress funeral. The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors And poets sage, the fir that weepeth still, The willow worn of forlorn paramours, The ewe obedient to the benders will, The birch for shafts, the sallow for the mill, The myrrh sweet bleeding in the bitter wound, The warlike beech, the ash for nothing ill, The fruitful olive, and the platan round, The carver holme, the maple seldom inward sound.

    - Edmund Spenser
      The Faerie Queen, bk.1, canto1, stanzas 8^9. plantan=plane tree; holme=holly.

  • In the name of the Constitution,Cromwell took up arms, executed the king, dissolved Parliament, imprisoned some, and beheaded others.

    -Joseph originally Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili Stalin
      In conversation with H G Wells, Moscow.

  • An editor is the uncrowned king of an educated democracy.

    -WilliamThomas Stead
      'Government byJournalism', in the Contemporary Review, May. Collected in A Journalist onJournalism (1892).

  • Have not the wisest of men in all ages, not excepting Solomon himself,have they not had their Hobby- Horses†and so long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

    - Laurence Sterne
    ^67  Tristram Shandy, bk.1, ch.7.

  • Divide not between Protestant and Papist. Divide not nationally, betwixt English and Irish. The King makes no distinction betwixt you.

    -Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
      To the Irish Parliament,15 Jul.

  • So cruel prison how could betide, alas, As proud Windsor? Where I in lust and joy With a king's son my childish years did pass In greater feast than Priam's sons of Troy.

    - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
      'So cruel prison'.

  • It little profits that an idle king By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an age'  d wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

    -Tennyson
      Poems,'Ulysses' (published1842), l.1^5.

  • To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honour his own words as if his God's.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'Guinevere', l.465^70.

  • For good ye are and bad, and like to coins, Some true, some light, but every one of you Stamped with the image of the King.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'The Holy Grail', l.25^7.

  • Authority forgets a dying king.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'The Passing of Arthur', l.289.

  • Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King Else, wherefore born?

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'Gareth and Lynette', l.117^18.

  • The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      'The HandThat Signed the Paper Felled a City'.

  • King of comforts, King of life, Thou hast cheered me, And when fears and doubts were rife, Thou hast cleared me. Not a hook in all my breast But thou fill'st it, Not a thought in all my rest But thou kill'st it. Wherefore with my utmost strength I will praise thee, And as thou giv'st line, and length, I will raise thee.

    - Henry Vaughan
      Silex Scintillans,'Praise'.

  • In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

    - H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells
      'The Country of the Blind', collected in The Country of the Blind and Other Stories (1911).

  • Hark! how all the welkin rings, Glory to the King of kings. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.

    - Charles Wesley
      'Hymn for Christmas'. In Hymns and Sacred Poems.The first two lines were changed to'Hark! the herald-angels sing/ Glory to the new born king' inWhitfield's Hymns for Social Worship (1753).

  • Rejoice, the Lord is King! Your Lord and King adore; Mortals, give thanks and sing, And triumph evermore: Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; Rejoice, again, I say rejoice.

    - Charles Wesley
      'Rejoice, the Lord is King'. In Hymns for our Lord's Resurrection.

  • A king is always a kingand a woman always a woman; his authorityand her sex, ever stand between them and rational converse.

    - Mary also known as Mrs Godwin Wollstonecraft
      AVindication of the Rights ofWoman, pt.1, ch.4.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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