#monarch

It was pitiful for a person born in a wholesome free atmosphere to listen to their humble and hearty outpourings of loyalty toward their king and Church and nobility; as if they had any more occasion to love and honor king and Church and noble than a slave has to love and honor the lash, or a dog has to love and honor the stranger that kicks him! Why, dear me, ANY kind of royalty, howsoever modified, ANY kind of aristocracy, howsoever pruned, is rightly an insult; but if you are born and brought up under that sort of arrangement you probably never find it out for yourself, and don't believe it when somebody else tells you. It is enough to make a body ashamed of his race to think of the sort of froth that has always occupied its thrones without shadow of right or reason, and the seventh-rate people that have always figured as its aristocracies -- a company of monarchs and nobles who, as a rule, would have achieved only poverty and obscurity if left, like their betters, to their own exertions... The truth was, the nation as a body was in the world for one object, and one only: to grovel before king and Church and noble; to slave for them, sweat blood for them, starve that they might be fed, work that they might play, drink misery to the dregs that they might be happy, go naked that they might wear silks and jewels, pay taxes that they might be spared from paying them, be familiar all their lives with the degrading language and postures of adulation that they might walk in pride and think themselves the gods of this world. And for all this, the thanks they got were cuffs and contempt; and so poor-spirited were they that they took even this sort of attention as an honor. ↗

— Mark Twain

#government #monarchy #religion #serfdom #slavery

I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch. ↗

— Charlie Chaplin

#crook #destitute #i #monarch #sooner

When it comes to the British monarchy, I prefer to be seduced by an image than presented with a real person. It's kind of a Warhol thing. ↗

— Damien Hirst

#comes #i #image #kind #monarchy

Sectarian divide has created a schism in our society that is a major challenge. As monarch of all Bahrainis, it pains me to see many harmed by the actions of a few. And yet I am optimistic and have faith in our people. We all realize that now is the time to strike a balance between stability and gradual reform. ↗

— Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa

#am #balance #between #challenge #created

Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states. ↗

— Elizabeth I

#dangers #death #monarchs #ought #put

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry. ↗

— Harold Wilson

#intensive #labor #monarchy

Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished. ↗

— Mary Wollstonecraft

#freeing #grasp #human #human mind #itself

The Bill of Rights was intended to secure freedom of speech - the freedom of speech of members of parliament to speak freely rather than be at threat of... the threat of an over powerful monarch at the time. ↗

— William Hague

#bill of rights #freedom #freedom of speech #freely #intended

If you look at Shakespeare's history plays, what the setting of monarchy allows is this extraordinary intensification of emotions and predicament. ↗

— Tom Hooper

#emotions #extraordinary #history #intensification #look

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. ↗

— John Adams

#bloody #commit #democracy #did #either