King James I Quotes

• The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth: for kings are not only God's Lieutenants upon earth, and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called Gods.

  King James I

  Kings, Divine Right, Thrones

  Speech to Parliament at Whitehall, March 21, 1609.

  103 Copy quote

• I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will.

  King James I

  Common

  90 Copy quote

• I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.

  King James I

  Gentleman, Lord, I Can

  78 Copy quote

• God has power to create, or destroy, make, or unmake at his pleasure, to give life, or send death, to judge all, and to be judged nor accountable to none: to raise low things, and to make high things low at his pleasure, and to God are both soul and body due. And the like power have Kings; they make and unmake their subjects: they have power of raising, and casting down: of life, and of death: judges over all their subjects, and in all causes, and yet accountable to none but God only.

  King James I

  Kings, Soul And Body, Judging

  86 Copy quote

• When a man makes up his mind to thrash another, he must also make up his mind to be a little thrashed himself.

  King James I

  Men, Mind, Littles

  56 Copy quote

• To make women learned and foxes tame has the same effect - to make them more cunning.

  King James I

  Foxes, Cunning, Effects

  55 Copy quote

• Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.

  King James I

  Marijuana, Smoking, Brain

  54 Copy quote

• I acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother church, although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions...Let [the Papists] assure themselves, that, as I am a friend of their persons, if they be good subjects, so am I a vowed enemy, and do denounce mortal war to their errors.

  King James I

  Mother, War, Errors

  On Roman Catholics, at the opening of parliament, 1604.

  52 Copy quote

• It is atheism and blasphemy to dispute what God can do: good Christians content themselves with His will revealed in His Word.

  King James I

  Christian, Atheism, Disputes

  28 Copy quote

• That which concerns the mystery of the King's power is not lawful to be disputed; for that is to wade into the weakness of Princes, and to take away the mystical reverence that belongs unto them that sit in the throne of God.

  King James I

  Kings, Weakness, Thrones

  Speech in the Star Chamber, June 1616.

  53 Copy quote

• 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

  Kings, Land, Devil

  Speaking of the Puritans at Hampton Court Conference, January 16, 1604.

  36 Copy quote

• If I were not a king, I would be a university man; and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that library [the Bodleian].

  King James I

  Kings, Men, Wish

  52 Copy quote

• Were I not a king, I would be a university man.

  King James I

  Kings, Men, Would Be

  38 Copy quote

• On tobacco: A branch of the sin of drunkenness, which is the root of all sins.

  King James I

  Roots, Branches, Sin

  33 Copy quote

• God gives not kings the stile of Gods in vaine,
  For on his throne his sceptre do they sway;
  And as their subjects ought them to obey,
  So kings should feare and serve their God againe.

  King James I

  Kings, Giving, Thrones

  14 Copy quote

• It is one of God's blessings that we cannot foreknow the hour of our death; for a time fixed, even beyond the possibility of living, would trouble us more than doth this uncertainty.

  King James I

  Future, Blessing, Trouble

  23 Copy quote

• The wisest fool in Christendom.

  King James I

  Fool, British History, Christendom

  19 Copy quote

• Dr Donne's verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding.

  King James I

  Understanding, Drs, Donne

  "The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations" edited by Elizabeth Knowles, Oxford University Press, 2004.

  19 Copy quote

• A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

  King James I

  Sports, Eye, Cigarette Smoke

  "A Counterblaste to Tobacco". 1604.

  24 Copy quote

• Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.

  King James I

  Men, Vanity, Should

  29 Copy quote

• That which we call wit consists much in quickness and tricks, and is so full of lightness that it seldom goes with judgment and solidity; but when they do meet, it is commonly in an honest man.

  King James I

  Men, Honest, Tricks

  22 Copy quote

• Smoke.. makes a kitchen also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soiling and infecting them, with an unctuous and oily kinde of Soote as hath been found in some great Tobacco takers, that after their death were opened.

  King James I

  Dark, Men, Kitchen

  14 Copy quote

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