King Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!" "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it."

It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expence, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expence, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.

We thought the Duke would have been pleased if the King's Majesty would have married his daughter, but nothing came of that—' Squints, and has freckles,' said Caspian. Oh, poor girl,' said Lucy.

First Guard:... Charmian, is this well done? Charmian: It is well done, and fitting for a princess Descended of so many royal kings.

William Shakespeare

It takes so much to be a king that he exists only as such. That extraneous glare that surrounds him hides him and conceals him from us; our sight breaks and is dissipated by it, being filled and arrested by this strong light.

Michel de Montaigne

The King asked
The Queen, and
The Queen asked
The Dairymaid:
'Could we have some butter for
The Royal slice of bread?'

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them.

I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me.

William Shakespeare

A pious man is one who would be an atheist if the king were.

Jean de La Bruyère

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

William Shakespeare

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling

The King that followeth Truth, and ruleth according to Justice, shall reign quietly: but he that doth the contrary, seeketh another to reign for him.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen: my crown is call'd content;
A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

William Shakespeare

They stood there, King of the Hill, Top of the Heap, Ruler of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs and Presidents, trying to understand what it meant to own a world and how big a world really was.

You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

William Shakespeare

Hamlet: No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world.
King: What do you call the play?
Hamlet: The Mouse-trap.

William Shakespeare

'Tis the first art of kings, the power to suffer hate.

Seneca the Younger

The chronic kicker, even the most violent critic, will frequently soften and be subdued in the presence of a patient, sympathetic listener— a listener who will be silent while the irate fault-finder dilates like a king cobra and spews the poison out of his system.

I would with the beleaguered fools be told,
that keep an inner fastness where their gold,
impure and scanty, yet they loyally bring
to mint in image blurred of distant king,
or in fantastic banners weave the sheen
heraldic emblems of a lord unseen.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king. So long as it is able to deceive without injuring, that master of deception, the intellect, is free; it is released from its former slavery and celebrates its Saturnalia. It is never more luxuriant, richer, prouder, more clever and more daring.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The little King dragged himself to the bed and lay down upon it, almost exhausted with hunger and fatigue... He murmured drowsily—
"Prithee call me when the table is spread," and sank into a deep sleep immediately.
A smile twinkled in Hendon's eye, and he said to himself—
"By the mass, the little beggar takes to one's quarters and usurps one's bed with as natural and easy a grace as if he owned them..."

When our king goes out they [French people] fall down and kiss the earth…. Then they go to kissing one another. This is the truest wisdon. They have as much happiness in one year as one Englishman in ten.

Thomas Jefferson

Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,
As the weird women promised; and, I fear,
Thou play'dst most foully for't.

William Shakespeare