Marcel Wanders Quotes

The court jester had the right to say the most outrageous things to the king. Everything was permitted during carnival, even the songs that the Roman legionnaires would sing, calling Julius Caesar 'queen,' alluding, in a very transparent way, to his real, or presumed, homosexual escapades.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places.

The silliest woman can manage a clever man; but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool.

Nothing overshadows truth so completely as authority.

I allow the public to believe that I have more influence with the King than I do in reality.

I always love the court fool in Shakespearean times, in Henry VIII's time. The fool can say all kinds of stuff that the other people can't say, so I'm hoping I might take that role.

The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.

Power is all. Another falsification; I do not tell how I gain or maintain it. I only record the ginger stroll through the vaguely fetid garden of its rewards.

If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,--a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress.

The city?" Tyrion was lost. "What city would that be?" "King's Landing. I am sending you to court." It was the last thing Tyrion Lannister would ever have anticipated. He reached for his wine, considered for a moment as he sipped. "And what am I to do there?" "Rule," his father said curtly.

In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces… Every man’s a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think they are players." Petyr Baelish

The politics of courtiers resemble their shadows; they cringe and turn with the sun of the day.

The man who bows before the ruler, shows his behind to the courtiers

All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved, if one of the two has to be wanting. For it may be said of men in general that they are ungrateful, voluble, dissemblers, anxious to avoid danger, and covetous of gain; as long as you benefit them, they are entirely yours; they offer you their blood, their goods, their life, and their children, as I have before said, when the necessity is remote; but when it approaches, they revolt.

The more things you know, or pretend to know, the more powerful you are. It doesn't matter if the things are true. What counts, remember, is to possess a secret.

A nod from a lord is a breakfast for a fool.

I am older than you. Believe me, there is no other way to live on earth. Men are not open to truth or reason. They cannot be reached by a rational argument. The mind is powerless against them. Yet we have to deal with them. If we want to accomplish anything, we have to deceive them into letting us accomplish it. Or force them. They understand nothing else. We cannot expect their support for any endeavor of the intellect, for any goal of the spirit. They are nothing but vicious animals. They are greedy, self-indulgent, predatory dollar-chasers

I don't doubt that every prince would like to be both; but since it is hard to accomodate these qualities, if you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved. For it is a good general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain....[love] is a link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break anything they think doing so serves their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.

I know what you want. It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. - The sea witch.

Generally our confidences move downward rather than upward; in our secret affairs, we employ our inferiors much more than our bettors.

A good prayer is master of anothers purse.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

Knaves starve not in the land of fools.

Credulity is always a ridiculous, often a dangerous failing: it has made of many a clever man, a fool; and of many a good man, a knave.