Monarchy Quotes
More Monarchy Quotes
In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.
Samuel Adams— Arguing for a Riot Act which prohibited 12 or more persons from congregating in public and which empowered county sheriffs to kill rioters, during debates prompted by Shays' Rebellion (1786 - 1787) and the death sentences given to many of the rebels; as quoted in Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980) Chapter 5 : A kind of Revolution; also quoted in "Completing the American Revolution" by Norman D. Livergood
Although the Macedonians, whose territory occupied the area around present-day Thessaloniki in northern Greece, considered themselves part of the Greek cultural sphere, many Greeks regarded them with contempt. In the eyes of the Greeks, the Macedonians were a mere offshoot of the original stock. They spoke a Greek dialect, to be sure, but they were led by a backward monarchy and their nobles.
— Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries, Dutch author, researcher and clinical professor of leadership development, "Are Leaders born or Are they made?: The case of Alexander the Great", Karnac Books (June 2004)
The best reason why monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardlyanywhere in the world understand any other.
walter bagehot— 1867 The English Constitution, ch.6,'The Monarchy'.
Here lies a king, that ruled as he thought fit The universal monarchy of wit.
thomas carew— 1633 'An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul's, Dr. John Donne'.
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— 1651Leviathan, pt.2, ch.19.
It never or rarely happens that a republic or monarchy is well constituted, or its old institutions entirely reformed, unless it is only done by one individual.
— 1513-17 Discourses on First Ten Books of Livy.
We have been given an assignment as a monarchy, and we do as well as we can ... We try to be as little populistic as possible. We don't do anything on the spur of the moment to win an opinion poll, or short-term popularity.
— Interview in Wenche Fuglehaug (November 21, 2005). "Norway's monarchy turns 100", Aftenposten, Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway.
In chess, bigamy is acceptable but monarchy is absolute.
garry kasparov— Part II, Chapter 8, Exchanges And Imbalances, p. 102
Once you touch the trappings of monarchy, like opening an Egyptian tomb, the inside is liable to crumble.
anthony sampson— Chapter 2 (Anatomy of Britain Today (1965))
Lands for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens, public walks, &c. possessions which are every where considered as causes of expence, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which, in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong the crown.
Adam Smith— Chapter II, Part I, p. 891
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— Introduction to 1891 edition of Karl Marx's, The Civil War in France
Americans ought be listening to Russ Feingold in these defining days for the Republic, because what the Democratic senator from Wisconsin is saying goes to the heart of the question of whether a nation founded in revolt against monarchy will be ruled by laws or by the crude whims of an intemperate sovereign and his out-of-control administration.
russ feingold— The Nation, Feb 12 2006
But at no one time had he given an unqualified opinion of the governments which succeeded that event [the abolition of the French monarchy]; much less would he stand pledged to give the least countenance to the scenes of blood and cruelty which had been the almost inseparable attendants on the varied and successive governments that followed one another. He formed his opinion of government by the test of practice, and not by the theory and on paper.
charles james fox— Speech in the House of Commons (29 October 1795), reprinted in J Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume V (1815), p. 505.
There is not a power in Europe, no not even Bonaparte's that is so unlimited [as the British monarchy].
charles james fox— Letter to Lord Holland (9 January 1804), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 194.
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— Letter to Arthur Campbell (1797).
How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy?
alan watts— YouTube video
The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles.
robert anton wilson— The Historical Illuminatus as spoken by M. Gabriel Sartines
In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.
— Samuel Adams, Arguing for a Riot Act which prohibited 12 or more persons from congregating in public and which empowered county sheriffs to kill rioters, during debates prompted by Shays' Rebellion (1786 - 1787) and the death sentences given to many of the rebels; as quoted in Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980) Chapter 5 : A kind of Revolution; also quoted in "Completing the American Revolution" by Norman D. Livergood
When Victor Adler objected to Berchtold, foreign minister of Austria-Hungary, that war would provoke revolution in Russia, even if not in the Habsburg monarchy, he replied: "And who will lead this revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein [Trotsky] sitting over there at the Cafe Central?"
— A. J. P. Taylor, in The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918 (1980)
We have been given an assignment as a monarchy, and we do as well as we can ... We try to be as little populistic as possible. We don't do anything on the spur of the moment to win an opinion poll, or short-term popularity.
— Harald V of Norway, interview in Wenche Fuglehaug (November 21, 2005). "Norway's monarchy turns 100", Aftenposten, Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway.
To a certain extent the Macedonian monarchy had already been a unifying element in Greek history, even before the conquests of Alexander.
— Michael Crawford, Fergus Millar, Emilio Gabba, "Sources for Ancient History", p. 12, Cambridge University Press
In truth, the abuses of monarchy had so much filled all the space of political contemplation, that we imagined everything republican which was not monarchy. We had not yet penetrated to the mother principle, that "governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it." Hence, our first constitutions had really no leading principles in them. But experience and reflection have but more and more confirmed me in the particular importance of the equal representation then proposed.
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval (July 12, 1816); in Paul L. Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (1899), vol. 10, p. 37.
[Magna Carta provided] “a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.”
— Winston Churchill, Magna Carta and Man’s Quest for Freedom, JW.org
Americans also seem to believe that the monarchy is a kind of mediaeval hangover, encumbered by premodern notions of decorum; the reality is that the British monarchy, for good or ill, is a modern political institution perhaps the first modern political institution.
— Adam Gopnik, in The New Yorker (29 September 1997).
The monarchy is a political referee, not a political player, and there is a lot of sense in choosing the referee by a different principle from the players. It lessens the danger that the referee might try to start playing.
— Conrad Russell, 5th Earl Russell, as quoted in The Spectator (11 January 1997).
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
samuel johnson— Samuel Johnson, Life of Milton.
The Film Industry is the American monarchy: it is strict entailed succession and Horatio Alger in one. Except for the money manipulators and speculators on the top, it is a society built onwork, achievement, and fealty tothose in power.
— 1986 Writing in Restaurants,'Observations of a Backstage Wife'.
Oligopoly is an imperfect monopoly. Like the despotism of the Dual monarchy, it is saved only by its incompetence.
john kenneth galbraith— Chapter XVI, Section 2, p. 182
"Well, Doctor, what have we got a Republic or a monarchy?" "A Republic, if you can keep it."
— Response attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation, in the notes of Dr. James McHenry, one of Maryland's delegates to the Convention. McHenry's notes were first published in The American Historical Review, vol. 11 (1906), and the anecdote on p. 618 reads: "A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy. A republic replied the Doctor if you can keep it." When McHenry's notes were included in The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, ed. Max Farrand, vol. 3, appendix A, p. 85 (1911, reprinted 1934), a footnote stated that the date this anecdote was written is uncertain.
