William Saroyan Quotes

As soon as man enters into a state of society he loses the sense of his weakness; equality ceases, and then commences the state of war.

just because a king is a king that does not mean he is not as human as you

Men are very much to be pitied in that they are to be governed by a king who is but a man like them; for it would require Gods to reform men. But kings are not less to be pitied, since being but men, that are weak and imperfect, they are to govern this innumerable multitude of corrupt and deceitful men.

The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse.

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

Sooner or later we're all someone's dog.

I'm no superman.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Proclaim human equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve his brother.

People in very high places suddenly fall, and we are always surprised because we don't factor in the basic element that they're humans and, therefore, they are flawed and have weaknesses.

And all men are ready to pass judgement on the priest as if he was not a being clothed with flesh, or one who inherited a human nature.

Stars really are like anyone else. At the end of the day, Brad Pitt poops - as handsome as he may be - and so does Angelina Jolie.

Man's biological weakness is the condition of human culture.

When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education, we must necessarily allow that nothing but their own consent could at first associate them together and subject them to any authority.

What makes equality such a difficult business is that we only want it with our superiors.

On the most exalted throne in the world, we are still seated on nothing but our arse.

The present King and Queen are popular, very, and increasingly so, but they have no message for the Labour Party who believe them, and rightly I fear, to be but the puppets of a Palace clique…. Still, it is the aristocracy which still rules England although nobody seems to believe it.

All men therefore among themselves are by nature equal; the inequality we now discern, hath its spring from the Civil Law.

Every man in the world is better than someone else and not as good as someone else.

However energetically society in general may strive to make all the citizens equal and alike, the personal pride of each individual will always make him try to escape from the common level, and he will form some inequality somewhere to his own profit.

Everybody is flawed, not just men.

Unfortunately I am a human being and not a robot.

I'm not invincible.

Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places - at the foot of the cross, and in the grave.

HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.