Monarchy

"[I]f we’re going to jeer at North Korea for being a de facto monarchy, we must also acknowledge the main advantage of such a system: no divisive squabbling over who has the right to rule. On my book tour for “The Cleanest Race” I used the example of my British mother: a firm supporter of the monarchy with different estimations of the various royals. She doesn’t like the idea of Charles becoming king, but accepts that it will and must happen."

"These Courts are not presumed to be the best acquainted with the rights and prerogatives of the Crown: in regard to such matters, we must look differently and respectfully to other authorities."

"The monarchy is a true system because it is bound to an absolute middle point; to an essence that belongs to humanity but not to the state."

"Whenever kingship approaches tyranny it is near its end, for by this it becomes ripe for division, change of dynasty, or total destruction, especially in a temperate climate … where men are habitually, morally and naturally free."

"Whether I have too little sense to see, or too much to be imposed upon; whether I have too much or too little pride, or of anything else, I leave out of the question; but certain it is, that what is called monarchy, always appears to me a silly, contemptible thing. I compare it to something kept behind a curtain, about which there is a great deal of bustle and fuss, and a wonderful air of seeming solemnity; but when, by any accident, the curtain happens to be open — and the company see what it is, they burst into laughter."

"Government by kings was first introduced into the world by the Heathens, from whom the children of Israel copied the custom. It was the most prosperous invention the Devil ever set on foot for the promotion of idolatry."

"Our Royal Family is wholesome and good, rather unimaginative Berkshire gentry...what is practised in their name is still a cult of personality, even though they are neither enriched by it or made politically powerful by it. Isn't adulation of any person, pop group, block or stone a condition we should be out of?"

"Royalty pollutes people’s minds, boy. Honest men start bowing and bobbing just because someone’s granddad was a bigger murdering bastard than theirs was."

"Royalty was like dandelions. No matter how many heads you chopped off, the roots were still there underground, waiting to spring up again."

"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."

"There is no doubt in my mind that, from the third-person point of view, monarchy is the most reasonable form of government. By embodying the state in a fragile human person, it captures the arbitrariness and the givenness of political allegiance, and so transforms allegiance into affection."

"The gates of monarchs Are arch'd so high that giants may jet through And keep their impious turbans on."

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

"And fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns."

"She had all the royal makings of a queen; As holy oil, Edward Confessor's crown, The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems Laid nobly on her."

"We are enforc'd to farm our royal realm; The revenue whereof shall furnish us For our affairs in hand."

"I give this heavy weight from off my head, And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, The pride of kingly sway from out my heart; With mine own tears I wash away my value, With mine own hands I give away my crown, With mine own tongue deny my sacred state, With mine own breath release all duteous oaths."

"I have often thought that the case against retaining the monarchy, which I usually construct in terms of the way it institutionalises deference, can be expressed much more simply: it rots the brain."

"I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly."

"By promoting the overthrow of the monarchy, the Allied and Associated Powers helped to destroy the political form that was most suited to the genius of the German people. A constitutional monarchy, with the color and ceremonial that are as dear to the Germans as to the English, would have given the German State a certain majesty and fascination that was denied to the Republic, largely by reason of the complete aridity of the Marxian Myth (dialectical materialism does not lend itself to picturesquely, symbolical representation). . . . The solution for Germany's internal dissentions might have been found in a popular monarchy, a Volkskaisertum. Besides, as we shall see later on, the monarchic principle was conducive to decentralization and favorable to that federal spirit which has added such variety, richness, and freedom to German life. The monarchy contained the menace of reaction, but no reaction and no despotism under a restored monarch would have been as tyrannical as the dictatorship established by the National Socialist revolution of 1933."

"This romancing about the royal family is, I fear, only a minor symptom of the softening of the brain of socialists enervated by affluence, social prestige and political power."

"I have always regarded and written of monarchy as a profoundly corrupting influence upon our national life, imposing an intricate snobbishness on our dominant classes, upon our religions, educational, military, naval and combatant services generally, burking the promotion of capable men and reserving power in the community entirely for the privileged supporters of our Hanoverian monarchy."

"Like homeopathy, most alternative therapies are closer to mysticism than to medicine. This may explain their appeal to the British royal family, whose survival depends on another irrational faith - the magic of hereditary monarchy, which was so fiercely debunked by Tom Paine and other Enlightenment pamphleteers. The Queen is said to carry homeopathic remedies with her at all times. Princess Diana was a devotee of reflexology, the belief that pressure applied to magical 'zones' in the hands and feet can heal ailments elsewhere in the body. Prince Charles has been a prominent champion of 'holistic' treatments since 1982, having been persuaded of their effectiveness by that absurd old charlatan Sir Laurens van der Post."

"...an intense propaganda by public men, in the press, and in the cinema, has been carried on day after day for years in order to establish in the people a superstitious "loyalty" towards the Royal Family...[which] makes a rational and intelligent attitude towards social problems impossible."

"Kingship, he held, demands not indolence, but manly virtue."

"In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed. And this kingdom will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it alone will stand forever, just as you saw that out of the mountain a stone was cut not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the copper, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The Grand God has made known to the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true, and its interpretation is trustworthy."

"The Prussian Sovereigns are in possession of a crown not by the grace of the people, but by God's grace."

"St. George he was for England; St. Dennis was for France. Sing, "Honi soit qui mal y pense.""

"Whatever I can say or do, I'm sure not much avails; I shall still Vicar be of Bray, Whichever side prevails."

"I dare be bold, you're one of those Have took the covenant, With cavaliers are cavaliers And with the saints, a saint."

"In good King Charles's golden days When royalty no harm meant, A zealous high-churchman was I, And so I got preferment."

"Every noble crown is, and on Earth will forever be, a ."

"Fallitur egregio quisquis sub principe credet Servitutem. Nunquam libertas gratior extat Quam sub rege pio."

"'Tis a very fine thing to be father-in-law To a very magnificent three-tailed bashaw."

"La clémence est la plus belle marque Qui fasse à l'univers connaître un vrai monarque."

"I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute, From the centre all round to the sea, I am lord of the fowl and the brute."

"Der Kaiser of dis Faderland, Und Gott on high all dings commands, We two—ach! Don't you understand? Myself—und Gott."

"As yourselves your empires fall, And every kingdom hath a grave."

"Elle gouvernait, mais elle ne régnait pas."

"The Royal Crown cures not the headache."

"Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi."

"On the king's gate the moss grew gray; The king came not. They call'd him dead; And made his eldest son, one day, Slave in his father's stead."

"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."

"'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor With a hairy old crown on 'er 'ead? She 'as ships on the foam—she 'as millions at 'ome. An' she pays us poor beggars in red."

"La cour est comme un édifice bâti de marbre; je veux dire qu'elle est composée d'hommes fort durs mais fort polis."

"Qui ne sait dissimuler, ne sait régner."

"L'état c'est moi."

"Qui nescit dissimulare, nescit regnare."

"A crown! what is it? It is to bear the miseries of a people! To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents, And sink beneath a load of splendid care!"

"Est aliquid valida sceptra tenere manu."