Rulers Quotes - Page 16

• Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.

  Aristotle

  Government, Democracy, Form

  Aristotle (2013). “The Essential Aristotle”, p.301, Simon and Schuster

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• Despots play their part in the works of thinkers. Fettered words are terrible words. The writer doubles and trebles the power of his writing when a ruler imposes silence on the people. Something emerges from that enforced silence, a mysterious fullness which filters through and becomes steely in the thought.

  Victor Hugo

  Writing, Play, Tyrants

  "Les misérables".

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• International affairs will be placed on a better footing when it is understood that there is no way of punishing a people for the crimes of its rulers.

  Bernard Berenson

  People, Way, Affair

  Bernard Berenson (1952). “Rumour and Reflection: 1941:1944”

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• The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

  Laozi

  Leadership, Subjects

  Laozi, D. C. Lau (1989). “Tao Te Ching”, p.31, Chinese University Press

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• When his (the good ruler's) task is accomplished and his work done, The people all say, "It happened to us naturally.

  Laozi

  Leadership, People, Tasks

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• Remember that you are an actor in a drama of such sort as the Author chooses: if short, then in a short one; if long, then in a long one. If it be His pleasure that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, see that you act it well. For this is your business, to act well the given part. But to choose it belongs to Another.

  Epictetus

  Drama, Men, Long

  Epictetus (2015). “The Enchiridion”, p.17, Xist Publishing

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• Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know, but leech-like to their fainting country cling, till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, - a people starved and stabbed in the untilled field.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Country, Blow, Blood

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley”, p.248

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• In order to judge of the form to be given to this institution the Senate, it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were,first, to protect the people against their rulers, secondly, to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.

  James Madison

  Views, Order, People

  James Madison, Edward J. Larson, Michael P. Winship (2011). “The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison”, p.86, Modern Library

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• The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world. One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure.

  Elias Canetti

  Thinking, Two, Differences

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• Where princes are concerned, a man who is able to do good is as dangerous and almost as criminal as a man who intends to do evil.

  Jean Francois Paul de Gondi

  Men, Evil, Criminals

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• What I was utterly convinced of, and still am, is the idea that the only responsibility the free intellectual has is vis-a-vis himself. He is not responsible to either a political party or a ruler.

  Tawfiq al-Hakim

  Party, Responsibility, Ideas

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• If you have but a single ruler, you lie at the discretion of a master who has no reason to love you: and if you have several, you must bear at once their tyranny and their divisions.

  Jean-Baptiste Rousseau

  Lying, Love You, Division

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• 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

  People, Balls, Speech

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• No Arab ruler will consider the peace process seriously so long as he is able to toy with the idea of achieving more by the way of violence.

  Yitzhak Rabin

  Ideas, Long, Toy Guns

  Yitzhak Rabin, Efraim Inbar, Merkaz Besa le-meḥḳarim asṭraṭegiyim (1996). “Yitzhak Rabin and Israeli national security: special memorial issue”

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• O man, do you believe that Christ is God? If you believe, fear, and keep His commandments? there is no other God but He (cf. Dt. 4:35). To Him no one is equal, nor can become equal (cf. Is. 40:18). He is Ruler of all things, the Judge of all, the King of all, the Maker of light and the Lord of life. He is the Light that is ineffable, inaccessible (cf. I Tim. 6:16), and He is the Only One. By His appearing He causes all His enemies to vanish before His face (cf. Ps. 68:2 f.), as well as those who do not perform His commandments, just as the sun when it rises drives away the darkness of night.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Kings, Believe

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• The imperative to develop new technologies and implement them on a heroic scale no longer seems like the childish preoccupation of a few nerds with slide rulers - It's the only way for the human race to escape from its current predicaments - Too bad we've forgotten how to do it

  Neal Stephenson

  Inspirational, Technology, Race

  Neal Stephenson (2012). “Some Remarks”, p.241, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• The student of biology is often struck with the feeling that historians, when dealing with the rise and fall of nations, do not generally view the phenomena from a sufficiently high biological standpoint. To me, at least, they seem to attach too much importance to individual rulers and soldiers, and to particular wars, policies, religions, and customs; while at the same time they make little attempt to extract the fundamental causes of national success or failure.

  Ronald Ross

  War, Fall, Science

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• Put a lot of paint & a wooden ball or other object on a board. Push to the other end of the board. Use this in a painting. - ruler on board.

  Jasper Johns

  Boards, Balls, Use

  Francis M. Naumann, Jasper Johns, Gagosian Gallery (1992). “Jasper Johns: according to what & watchman”

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• In proportion as the mass of citizens who possess political rights increases, and the number of elected ruler's increases, the actual power is concentrated and becomes the monopoly of a smaller and smaller group of individuals.

  Paul Lafargue

  Rights, Numbers, Political

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• [Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.

  Richard Francis Burton

  Wise, Witty, Art

  Richard Francis Burton, John Payne, Andrew Lang, Jonathan Scott (2015). “One Thousand and One Nights - Complete Arabian Nights Collection (Delphi Classics)”, p.4187, Delphi Classics

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• Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Party, Believe, Ignorance

  B. L. Rayner, Thomas Jefferson (1834). “Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait”, p.386

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• My worryingly paradoxical thought process could be summarized thus: Thank God I don't believe in the secret rulers of the world. Imagine what the secret rulers of the world might do to me if I did!

  Jon Ronson

  Believe, Secret, Thank God

  Jon Ronson (2012). “Jon Ronson's Adventures With Extraordinary People”, p.120, Pan Macmillan

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• How odd that Americans, and not just their presidents, have come to think of their Constitution as something separable from the government it's supposed to constitute. In theory, it should be as binding on rulers as the laws of physics are on engineers who design bridges; in practice, its axioms have become mere options. Of course engineers don't have to take oaths to respect the law of gravity; reality gives them no choice. Politics, as we see, makes all human laws optional for politicians.

  Joseph Sobran

  Thinking, Reality, Government

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• No matter what one says, you can recognize only those matters that are equal to you. Only rulers who possess extraordinary abilities will recognize and esteem properly extraordinary abilities in their subjects and servants.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Equality, Matter, Ability

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• When we realise our oneness with our RULER, then the matter shall have no longer power over us, and we shall see it as the unreality it is.

  Annie Besant

  God, Oneness, Matter

  Annie Besant (1904). “A Study in Consciousness: A Contribution to the Science of Psychology”

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