Top 100 Quotes About Rulers
#1. The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard it ceases to be anything more than 'the gang in possession,' and its days are numbered.
H.G.Wells
#2. Social power is the power over nature, the living standards achieved by men in mutual exchange. State power, as we have seen, is the coercive and parasitic seizure of this production - a draining of the fruits of society for the benefit of nonproductive (actually antiproductive) rulers.
Murray N. Rothbard
#3. Your friend Plato holds that commonwealths will only be happy when either philosophers rule or rulers philosophize: how remote happiness must appear when philosophers won't even deign to share their thoughts with kings.
Thomas More
#4. It is clear that those constitutions which aim at the common good are right, as being in accord with absolute justice; while those which aim only at the good of the rulers are wrong.
Aristotle.
#5. Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
#6. The rights of the people to the exercise and fruits of their own industry can never be protected against the selfishness of rulers not subject to their control at short periods.
Thomas Jefferson
#7. Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers
and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt
of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of
sheep against the practice of eating mutton.
Bertrand Russell
#8. For desire is like a wild beast, and anger perverts rulers and the very best of men. Hence law is intelligence without appetition.
Aristotle.
#9. The human eye is restricted to see the useen, because there's a price to be paid to the rulers of this image and if this image is seen by you, you'll dare not divulge it to others, for others must pay a price
Michael Bassey Johnson
#10. A nation's laws must be virtuous,
even when its inhabitants are not.
A nation's rulers must be faithful to God,
even when their subjects are not.
Matshona Dhliwayo
#11. Our rulers at the present day, with their machines and their preachers, are all occupied in putting into our heads the preposterous notion that activity rather than contemplation is the object of life.
John Cowper Powys
#12. The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike ... Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish.
C.S. Lewis
#13. the rich just bribe their way out. So yes, as far as the rulers are concerned, it works.
Iain M. Banks
#14. Dangerous consequences will follow when politicians and rulers forget moral principles. Whether we believe in God or karma, ethics is the foundation of every religion.
Dalai Lama XIV
#15. People are hard to govern. The rulers interfere with too much. That is why people are hard to govern.
Laozi
#16. A prudent ruler is distinguished by his ability to manage.
Sunday Adelaja
#17. Power is the sum total of the wills of the mass, transfered by express or tactic agreement to rulers chosen by the masses.
Leo Tolstoy
#18. Because a man plays a king superbly well does not mean that he would make a good king.
Louis L'Amour
#19. We join Armenians around the world as we remember the terrible massacres suffered in 1915-1923 at the hands of the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. The United States responded to this crime against humanity by leading diplomatic and private relief efforts.
George H. W. Bush
#20. It [the depression] was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence worked out as one works out a mathematical equation. The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as the rulers of us all.
Louis Thomas McFadden
#21. What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.
Thomas Jefferson
#22. If you're a critic of the rulers of the United States, you are either demonized, or you are trivialized by the press, and they do a very good job of making you into a non-person or a ridiculous person.
Gore Vidal
#23. To eliminate statism is not to physically subdue the rulers, but to mentally liberate the ruled.
Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski
#24. We supplicate all rulers not to remain deaf to the cry of mankind. Let them do everything in their power to save peace. By so doing they will spare the world the horrors of a war that would have disastrous consequences, such as nobody can foresee.
Pope John XXIII
#25. His real point was not that a market-based order was perfect or even perfectible. Rather, it was more beneficial, and ultimately more rational, than ones put together by politicians or rulers, who are themselves creatures of their own passions and whims.
Arthur Herman
#26. It is a law woven into the nature of man, attested by history, by science, by literature and art, and by dally experience, that strength of mind and force of character are the supreme rulers of human affairs.
Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II
#27. The messianic hope was never the hope of the victors and the rulers. It was always the hope of the defeated and the ground down.31 The hope of the poor is nothing other than the messianic hope.
Jurgen Moltmann
#28. Following rulers instead of prophets, the wicked can rule you, but the knowledge can stop it.
Kool Moe Dee
#29. Rulers who attempt to control an unwilling populace govern nothing, and often find their heads atop a pike to boot.
Erika Johansen
#30. Powerful women are either sexually voracious rulers like Catherine the Great or Elizabeth I, or treacherous bitches like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy
Bill Gates
#31. It matters also that both Henry and his daughter Elizabeth were not just rulers but consummate performers, masters of political propaganda and political theater. They
G.J. Meyer
#32. Now, there is a wonderful thing in this world called "foresight". It is a gift treasured above all others because it allows one to know what the future holds. Most people with foresight end up wielding immense power in life, often becoming great rulers or librarians.
Jonathan Auxier
#33. There will be a great loss of learning before the moon's full cycle is completed. Fire and floods will be fomented by ignorant rulers; much time will go by before it is rectified.
Nostradamus
#34. I have seen the poor suffer when nobles seek the purity of ideals. I have seen the powerless die when princes believe in the nostalgia of their dreams. I have seen the common people torn from peace and thrown into war when kings yearn to test the clarity of their vision.
Ken Liu
#35. It was not necessary and might even have been disadvantageous for a government to claim a direct personal commission and communion of the kind God had given some rulers in the Old Testament. A working government might need the support of the Church but not of God Himself in a voice from on high.
Edmund Morgan
#36. I die, as I have lived, a free spirit, an Anarchist, owing no allegiance to rulers, heavenly or earthly.
Voltairine De Cleyre
#37. Freedom granted by your rulers is just a chain with a little slack.
Seth Dickinson
#38. For the images of the gods are much easier to misuse for human purposes than the gods themselves. Images have no will and no desires. Statues stand for nothing but the goals of the rulers. ... The word of a god is, in truth, only the word of the one who erected his statue.
Kai Meyer
#39. In truth, every American administration since that of Franklin D. Roosevelt has maintained close ties with the Saudi rulers, and for a single, simple reason: oil.
Michael Mandelbaum
#40. If you look at history you'll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.
Desiderius Erasmus
#42. If through your vices you afflicted are, Lay not the blame of your distress on God; You made your rulers mighty, gave them guards, So now you groan 'neath slavery's heavy rod.
Solon
#43. And it makes you wonder - how can a people incapable of selecting their own lightbulbs and toilets possess enough competence to vote for their own rulers and fill out complicated tax returns?
Mark R. Levin
#44. Laws and conditions that tend to debase human personality - a God-given force - be they brought by the State or individuals, must be relentlessly opposed in the spirit of defiance shown by St. Peter when he said to the rulers of his day: 'Shall we obey God or man?'
Albert Lutuli
#45. The word is a bouncing ball The ruler throws from his balcony. The word has been a shot of morphine. Rulers calm their people with speeches.
Nizar Qabbani
#46. I now add, farther, that the apostle's argument is so far from proving it to be the duty of people to obey, and submit to, such rulers as act in contradiction to the public good, and so to the design of their office, that it proves the direct contrary.
Jonathan Mayhew
#47. Modern war, modern international hostility is, I believe, possible only through the stupid illiteracy of the mass of men and the conceit and intellectual indolence of rulers and those who feed the public mind.
H.G.Wells
#48. Where there are repeated wars, the people are weakened; when they score repeated victories, rulers become haughty. Let haughty rulers command weakened people, and rare is the nation that will not perish as a result.
Sun Tzu
#49. The rulers of the earth plan, and scheme, and make laws, and change laws, and war, and pull down one, and raise up another. But they little think that they rule only by the will of Jesus, and that nothing happens without the permission of the Lamb of God.
J.C. Ryle
#50. Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.
Seneca.
#51. The inability to grasp the pathology* of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults.
Chris Hedges
#52. The chronological list of rulers differs on different lists, some lists do not include known kings, and some include kings who probably were mythological - as if a tally of English rulers matter-of-factly included King Arthur and his father, Uther Pendragon. The
Charles C. Mann
#53. 16For by [6] him all things were created, l in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether m thrones or n dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created o through him and for him.
Anonymous
#54. We libertarians are not the spokesmen for any ethnic or economic class; we are the spokesmen for all classes, for all of the public; we strive to see all of these groups united, hand-in-hand, in opposition to the plundering and privileged minority that constitutes the rulers of the State.
Murray Rothbard
#55. With snow came the kites, once the rulers of Kabul's winter skies, now timid trespassers in territory claimed by streaking rockets and fighter jets.
Khaled Hosseini
#56. Freedom under law is hard work. If rulers cannot be trusted with arbitrary power, it is up to citizens to raise their voices at injustice.
Anthony Lewis
#57. Abetted by misguided or co-opted intellectuals, the rulers weave a cloak of legitimacy to disguise their theft and hence to ease their extraction of wealth from the rightful owners.
Robert Higgs
#58. States will never be happy until rulers become philosophers or philosophers become rulers.
Plato
#59. Corrupt citizens breed corrupt rulers, and it is the mob who finally decides when virtue shall die.
Taylor Caldwell
#60. RULERS should be careful about what songs are allowed to be sung.
Pete Seeger
#61. Left to themselves, humans have always managed their own affairs creatively and well. Indeed, for most of human evolution and history people have lived peaceful, co-operative lives without rulers, leaders, politicians, soldiers, policemen and taxmen.
Peter Marshall
#62. The hundred parts of the body are all complete in their places. Which should one prefer? Do you like them all equally? Are they all servants? Are they unable to control one another and need a ruler? Or do they become rulers and servants in turn? Is there any true ruler other than themselves?
Zhuangzi
#63. Not one of the European rulers would put himself about in the attempt to save Marie Antoinette, so that Mercy scornfully declared: "They would not have tried to save her even if they had with their own eyes seen her mounting the steps to the guillotine.
Stefan Zweig
#64. For citizens who think themselves puppets in the hands of their rulers, nothing is more satisfying than having rulers as puppets in their hands.
Pico Iyer
#65. Don't live your life as though you were measuring it with a ruler.
Sun Myung Moon
#66. I wasn't a class clown, because nuns have no sense of humor. They have rulers.
Dan Alatorre
#67. When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people ... and ... becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression ... it is a ... sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government, and create another in its stead.
Sam Houston
#68. Let us learn from the English rulers the simple fact that the oppressors are blind to the enormity of their own misdeeds.
Mahatma Gandhi
#69. Our rulers for more than half a century have made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that our government has done to other people, not to mention our own.
Gore Vidal
#70. Evil Rulers Are Never Beyond The Bounds of God's Sovereign Will
Jerry Bridges
#71. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.
James Madison
#72. This was one lesson that the war taught me - that every event in time presents opportunities that are recognizable only to those with enough sensibility to see them, that it is possible to thrive in adversity in the needs of the rulers are pandered to.
F. Sionil Jose
#73. Of course, women have long exercised influence behind the scenes. A few thousand years ago this drove Aristotle to distraction: 'What difference does it make whether women rule or the rulers are ruled by women? The result is the same.'
Stacy Schiff
#74. It is our grave mistake that for many years we neglected pro-Western groups in order to avoid any friction with the existing rulers.
Jose Maria Aznar
#75. That is a great mystery," said Doctor Winter. "That is a mystery that has disturbed rulers all over the world - how the people know. It disturbs the invaders now, I am told, how news runs through censorships, how the truth of things fights free of control. It is a great mystery.
John Steinbeck
#76. The United States reaps the thorns its rulers have planted in the world.
Saddam Hussein
#77. The shrill voices of those who give orders
Are full of fear like the squeakings of
Piglets awaiting the butcher's knife, as their fat arses
Sweat with anxiety in their office chairs ...
Fear rules not only those who are ruled, but
The rulers too.
Bertolt Brecht
#78. He's no king," I said. "Rulers aren't made just because they sit on the throne. A true king serves his people, protects them, and sees to their happiness if he can.
Jennifer A. Nielsen
#79. O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#80. {We} have not to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule; rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can't.
G.K. Chesterton
#81. Lebanon is restless, Syria got its walking papers, Egypt is scheduling elections with more than one candidate, and even Saudi Arabia, whose rulers are perhaps more terrified of women than rulers anywhere else in the world, allowed limited municipal elections.
Suzanne Fields
#82. Every civilization has had a form of currency, usually silver and gold, that is controlled by the rulers and kings of that society. The people in power remain in power by controlling the circulation of money. It is no different today than it was thousands of years ago.
Joseph P. Kauffman
#83. Government being, among other purposes, instituted to protect the consciences of men from oppression, it certainly is the duty of Rulers, not only to abstain from it themselves, but according to their stations, to prevent it in others.
George Washington
#84. The rulers were using ancient knowledge to manipulate the amygdaloidal primal fear. They ruled through fear, preternatural fear created through soft, invisible waves designed to alternate the brain's almond. They kept the people spellbound
Amira Aly
#85. The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.
Felix Frankfurter
#86. And what if Britain lost? There would be a financial crisis, unemployment, and destitution. Working-class men would take up Ethel's father's cry and say that they had never been allowed to vote for the war. The people's rage against their rulers would be boundless.
Ken Follett
#87. Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
David Hume
#88. Like most Maya rulers, Chak Tok Ich'aak spent a lot of his time luxuriating in his court while dwarf servants attended to his whims and musicians played conch shells and wooden trumpets in the background. But
Charles C. Mann
#89. It is hard to know how many people do, but given that the people are so docile towards the rulers, nowadays, very few Americans show the passion for freedom that our forefathers had.
James Bovard
#90. Money comes to Switzerland through three illegal sources: tax evasion in other developed countries, the blood money of dictators and other rulers in the Third World and organized crime.
Jean Ziegler
#91. The rulers of the country generally believed that betting eliminates strikes. Men had to work in order to gamble.
Michael Ondaatje
#92. Some wars have been due to the lust of rulers for power and glory, or to revenge to wipe out the humiliation of a former defeat.
John Boyd Orr
#93. In the highest antiquity, (the people) did not know that there were (their rulers).
Lao-Tzu
#94. You must contrive for your future rulers another and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well-ordered State; for only in the State which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich, not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, which are the true blessings of life.
Plato
#95. couples. Their duties done, they had eyes only for each other, locking glances and smiling deeply; two realms, two rulers, united in love and a shared dream. It
Jacqueline Carey
#96. for men change their rulers willingly, hoping to better themselves, and this hope induces them to take up arms against him who rules: wherein they are deceived, because they afterwards find by experience they have gone from bad to worse. This
Niccolo Machiavelli
#97. Rulers exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
Ayn Rand
#98. I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power.
Catullus
#99. Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.
Aristotle.
#100. Though surnamed the Wise, he was not immune from the occupational disease of rulers: overestimation of their capacity to control events. No
Barbara W. Tuchman
