Top 100 Quotes About Monarchy
#1. I believe that the visit of the Queen to the United States is an admirable occasion to produce an historical, truthful, sincere, genuine analysis of how the British Monarchy evolved into its present situation.
Malcolm Muggeridge
#2. The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other.
Walter Bagehot
#3. [M]onarchy was, or ought to be, not so much absolute as mitigated by the principle of ius politicum, supporting a mixed polity partaking of elements both royal and political, which is to say, popular and representative.
Patrick Collinson
#4. A nation is truly corrupted when having ... lost its character and it's liberty, it passes from democracy to aristocracy or to monarchy. That is the decrepitude and death of the body politic ...
Maximilien De Robespierre
#6. Citizenship is what makes a republic - monarchies can get along without it.
Mark Twain
#7. The idea that each corporation can be a feudal monarchy and yet behave in its corporate action like a democratic citizen concerned for the world we live in is one of the great absurdities of our time -
Kim Stanley Robinson
#8. Films about the English monarchy, they tend to have a lavishness, sumptuous imagery, it's all very posh and rich.
Tom Hooper
#9. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.
Thomas Paine
#10. The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
#11. All government is an evil, but, of the two form's of that evil, democracy or monarchy, the sounder is monarchy; the more able to do its will, democracy.
Benjamin Haydon
#12. The State, every government whatever its form, character or color - be it absolute or constitutional, monarchy or republic, Fascist, Nazi or bolshevik - is by its very nature conservative, static, intolerant of change and opposed to it.
Emma Goldman
#13. Who can in reason then or right assume monarchy over such as live by right his equals, if in power or splendor less, in freedom equal?
John Milton
#15. The US head of state grew up on food stamps. The British head of state grew up on the postage stamps.
Johann Hari
#16. A monarchy is like a man-of-war
bad shots between wind and water hurt it exceedingly; there is danger of capsizing. But democracy is a raft. You cannot easily overturn it. It is a wet place, but it is a pretty safe one.
Joseph Cook
#17. What royal families are very good at doing is surviving and reinventing themselves. That's true whether it's a constitutional monarchy in Britain or an authoritarian monarchy.
Robert Lacey
#18. All groups are a little intimidated by ya show of power. I mean who ever thought the monarchy was dead didn't realize it changed zip codes. - Cross
Mira Monroe
#19. Well, when did this become a monarchy? You know, we are the people. The president works for us and, you know, we need to remember that.
Ben Carson
#20. A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.
Fisher Ames
#21. It's very easy to just shout: 'Off with their heads!' Maybe in doing that you might lose something very valuable. I would like to see the monarchy continue, but in a more democratic fashion.
Helen Mirren
#22. You can't start with a democracy. You have to work up through stuff like tyranny and monarchy first. That way people are so relived when they get to democracy that they hang on to it.
John Steinbeck
#23. You are apprehensive of monarchy; I, of aristocracy. I would therefore have given more power to the President and less to the Senate.
John Adams
#24. How can a republic be the best form of government if the universe, heaven and hell are all a monarchy?
Alan W. Watts
#25. The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.
Friedrich Engels
#26. Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other.
Philippa Gregory
#27. With a few exceptions, conservative Christian political activists are as ineffective as White Russian exiles, drinking tea from samovars in their Paris drawing rooms, plotting the restoration of the monarchy. One wishes them well but knows deep down that they are not the future.
Rod Dreher
#28. Louis XVI started to die on June 21st 1791. For his flight tore away the veil of that false constitutional monarchy, and once more confronted the Patriot party with the whole problem of the revolution's future.
Francois Furet
#29. Europeans are forever the offspring of Machiavelli, trapped in a historical rollercoaster that can bring us a monarchy-toppling French Revolution and then a few years later Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor.
Loretta Napoleoni
#30. I simply make this point, that the monarchy in so far, as it is identified with what is, in my opinion, an obsolete class structure, is making a mistake, and the task of those who are responsible for the conduct of the monarchical institution is to detach it from that class structure.
Malcolm Muggeridge
#31. 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
#32. I've spent a bit of time with the Prince of Wales, who I respect greatly. I'd give two cheers for the Monarchy.
Sting
#33. Our history told of kings that smiled and kings that conquered. He was the latter.
Rachel E. Carter
#34. 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
#35. I respect the British a lot - their history, their past, their culture. I think it's beautiful, what they have with the monarchy.
Jean-Marc Vallee
#36. If monarchy is corrupting - and it is - wait till you see what overt empire does to us.
Daniel Ellsberg
#37. High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship - nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change.
John Green
#38. [It was] better to set up a monarchy themselves than to suffer a sedition to continue that must certainly end in one.
Plutarch
#40. There is not a power in Europe, no not even Bonaparte's that is so unlimited [as the British monarchy].
Charles James Fox
#41. The Monarchy ... is the secret well from which the flourishing institution of British Snobbery draws its nourishment
Kingsley Martin
#42. Boy," Chade remarked quietly. "Never pretend we are anything but what we are. Assassins. Not merciful agents of a wise king. Political assassins dealing death for the furtherance of our monarchy. That is what we are.
Robin Hobb
#43. Power always becomes consolidated back into the hands of very few people ... whether they be an economic aristocracy, a royalty, a monarchy which is the most concentrated form of oligarchy where it depends on one King who is ordained supposedly by God to rule.
Immortal Technique
#44. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
Thomas Paine
#45. The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.
Sue Townsend
#46. The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.
Abraham Lincoln
#47. The Emperor Napoleon, ascending gradually from his post of national magistrate to seat himself upon a throne without limits, seems to have wished to punish, as for the abuse of republican reforms, by making us feel all the weight of absolute monarchy.
Marquis De Lafayette
#48. My father established the first women's university in the kingdom, abolished slavery, and tried to establish a constitutional monarchy that separates the position of king from that of prime minister.
Basmah Bint Saud
#49. Absolute monarchy, ... is the easiest death, the true Euthanasia of the BRITISH constitution.
David Hume
#51. In other words, the most ardent republicans since the fall of Rome were asking their king to help them prevail over the representative legislature of the world's oldest constitutional monarchy, the great symbol and protector of British freedom. From
Sarah Vowell
#52. As virtue is necessary in a republic, and honor in a monarchy, fear is what is required in a despotism. As for virtue, it is not at all necessary, and honor would be dangerous there.
Baron De Montesquieu
#53. I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.
Edmund Burke
#54. The story of the king is the story of the people, and unfortunately, to this day, no king has learned that lesson.
Rabih Alameddine
#55. 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."
Benjamin Franklin
#56. Democracy ... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
John Adams
#57. I'm not a republican any more. Not so voraciously anyway - I'm not in favour of the concept of monarchy, but I do see the good in it if there's a good person in the role.
Helen Mirren
#58. Saudia Arabia takes in half a trillion dollars every year in oil revenue, and the country has a population smaller than New York state, but when your system of government is an eleventh century monarchy, someone's going to end up poor, and it's not gonna be the guy whose first name is King.
Craig Ferguson
#59. British monarchy exists not to exercise power but to keep other people from having the power.
Ketevan Gogelia
#60. The monarchy is a part of the state. It exists to serve the people.
Heather Brooke
#61. When you cannot love or hate anymore, then where is the charm of life?
Arthur Schnitzler
#62. When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing.
Damien Hirst
#63. Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine.
W. H. Auden
#65. We could have a political movement going if it had been properly organized but the Monarchy's done itself enormous damage possibly beyond the point of long-term recovery.
Anthony Holden
#66. Over the years to come, one thing is for certain: if the monarchy wishes to stay relevant and in power, it will have to change more.
Kate Williams
#67. I'd like to see a much more open Monarchy, myself. I used to think they were completely useless and we should get rid of them. I don't necessarily feel that way anymore. I'm still ambivalent, I still loathe the British class system, and the Royal family are the apex of the British class system.
Helen Mirren
#68. You put the small thief in prison, but the big thief lives in a palace.
Graham Greene
#69. Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Benjamin Franklin
#70. Something as curious as the monarchy won't survive unless you take account of people's attitudes. After all, if people don't want it, they won't have it.
Prince Charles
#71. The British monarchy has the political and constitutional task of subtracting from the government and governors of Britain the papal and kingly airs that in America, because we have no such institution, unfortunately adhere to the president.
Mark Helprin
#72. Then this will only prove again and again, that Monarchy in Germany is he longer capable of a national act.
Ferdinand Lassalle
#73. It's like a rugby team. If you're picking for the World Cup final, you're picking experience with youth. Everything is better off having that balance and that mix. I think that, especially, goes for the monarchy as well.
Prince William
#74. I think the relation between the monarchy and the press is very much a two-way street.
Anthony Holden
#75. with ambitious aim against the throne and monarchy of God rais'd impious war in Heav'n and battel proud
John Milton
#76. How remorseless must one be find pleasure in riding a Wilhelmina golden coach in the 21st century.
Dauglas Dauglas
#77. We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy.
Ezra Stiles
#78. Vernon Bogdanor's account The Monarchy and the Constitution is written as much in the shadow of Edmund Burke as it is of Walter Bagehot. He stresses the organic development of the British constitution, prefers evolution to revolution, and thinks stability is better than strife.
David Cannadine
#79. monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.
Thomas Paine
#80. The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion.
Alexander Hamilton
#81. The politics of the Essays preach a conservatism natural in one who aspired to rule. Bacon wants a strong central power. Monarchy is the best form of government; and usually the efficiency of a state varies with the concentration of power.
Will Durant
#82. I'm not a great fan of monarchy in general, but I have to say the Danish monarchy is closer to the people; it's not as stuffy as the English one.
Viggo Mortensen
#83. The revolution has overthrown the monarchy, true! But perhaps this means that the revolution simply has driven the skin disease inside the organism.
Maxim Gorky
#84. Dynamic, rapidly expanding European monarchy seeks a can-do visionary to head up its South American divisions.Our ideal candidate will have at least five years' experience in New World colonization and be willing to accept shift work. Fluency in Spanish an asset.Some travel involved
Christopher Columbus
#85. Sasanian monarchy and the fabled Kayanid
Tom Holland
#86. With kings and queens inside his bag. Hulaki was a man of power.
Mahesh Poudyal
#88. The people under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies.
Martin Van Buren
#89. Human rights can only be assured among a virtuous people. The general government ... can never be in danger of degenerating into a monarchy, an oligarchy, an aristocracy, or any despotic or oppresive form so long as there is any virtue in the body of the people.
George Washington
#90. Good only for destruction - has destroyed all that was valuable in the monarchy - is destroying France with daemonic energy - this tawdry, theatrical empire - a deeply vulgar man - nothing French about him - insane ambition - the whole world one squalid tyranny. His infamous treatment of the Pope!
Patrick O'Brian
#91. Among many, many others, the following things were definitely not interesting: the pupillary sphincter, mitosis, baroque architecture, jokes that have physics equations as punch lines, the British monarchy, Russian grammar, and the significant role that salt has played in human history.
John Green
#92. Inevitably, as hatred of monarchy was added to hatred of episcopacy, they were led to republicanism.
Barbara W. Tuchman
#93. It's vital that the monarchy keeps in touch with the people. It's what I try and do.
Princess Diana
#94. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.
C.S. Lewis
#95. It seems to me that Sotheby's is very much like the British monarchy: an old and apparently very venerable institution which is in fact very nimble on its feet, an institution invested with a great deal more self-interest than the public image would suggest.
Robert Lacey
#96. For monarchy to work, one man must be wise. For democracy to work, a majority of the people must be wise. Which is more likely?
Charles Maurras
#97. If you aim at a Scottish presbytery, it agreeth as well with monarchy, as God and the devil ... No bishop, no King! I will make them conform themselves, or else I will harry them out of the land, or else do worse.
King James I
#98. The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy.
Algernon Sidney
#99. Countries that managed to rebuild commanding state structures after popular nationalist revolutions - such as China, Vietnam, and Iran - look stable and cohesive when compared with a traditional monarchy such as Thailand or wholly artificial nation-states like Iraq and Syria.
Pankaj Mishra
#100. Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy. It's beset by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State and Shiite extremists backed by Iran.
David Ignatius
