Mehdi Hasan Quotes

Every country should have at least one King Farouk.

I worked with James Orange and Hosea Williams as a teenager, and he's portrayed in the movie by Wendell Pierce. So, for me to be able to come in, 20 years after working with them as a teenager, and to portray Reverend James Orange in 'Selma' is mind-blowing.

I knew all about Edward VIII's abdication, George VI becoming the king and having a stammer, but nothing about how he got rid of it.

The bump I was trying to hide could be the future king of England.

After a hundred years the son of the King then reigning, who was of another family from that of the sleeping Princess, was a-hunting on that side of the country, and he asked what those towers were which he saw in the middle of a great thick wood.

I was actually very hesitant to write about Marie Antoinette. She seemed at first glance - well, I cannot think of any other term - an airhead of the first degree.

There's nothing secret about it. Everyone knows that I am waiting for my real parents, the king and queen, to come restore me to my rightful throne.

Saudi Arabia has stability. The social contract and the political contract between the king and the rulers and the royal family and the ruled people in Saudi Arabia is very strong and the bondage is so solid.

I'd love to have tea and scones with the Queen; she's my idol.

King Frederick I of Prussia conceived the Amber Chamber in 1701 as a magnificent gift to the Russian royal family that would seal the alliance between the two powers.

If you look at the British royal family and take away the scandals and the goofy stuff that's going on, people love to have this king to look up to - the royals are like celebrities.

I've spent a bit of time with the Prince of Wales, who I respect greatly. I'd give two cheers for the Monarchy.

In England especially, I've found that if you bring up King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson at a dinner party or a social gathering, it's like throwing a Molotov cocktail into the room.

Together, for over 50 years, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia have devoted themselves to Spain.

The King and Queen made the rounds after the film. We were told how we were to respond, and we were in a semi circle in the lounge area of the cinema, they came around after the King, the Queen and both Princesses.

In France, the people were the sport of a king's caprice. Everywhere was the shadow of the Bastille. It fell upon the sunniest field, upon the happiest home.

The King's son, who was told that a great princess, whom nobody knew, was come, ran out to receive her. He gave her his hand as she alighted from the coach, and led her into the hall where the company were assembled.

I'd like to be Queen Elizabeth.

But I was always much more interested in reading fashion magazines than I was music magazines when I was a teenager. Just that sense of romanticism and escapism and the dream of it has always been quite alluring to me, as well as that sense of becoming a character through clothes.

The kingdom of Siam is heathen… the people are considered to be prudent folk .... The merchants know a great deal about merchandise … The kingdom is justly ruled. The King is always in residence in the city of Ayutthaya… he’s very ceremonious with strangers; he moves freely in easily with the natives. He has many wives—upwards of 500. On the death or decaying [of the king] it has as king a person of the royal blood … if he is suitable, and if he is not there are sometimes agreements and assemblies to decide who will be the best.

Cambodians dare do nothing of themselves without leave of the king, which is why Christians cannot be made without the king’s approval …. Nothing is done that the king knoweth not.

The princess would never leave without me, and I wouldn’t leave without the King, and the King will never leave..

A good king although he be above the law, will subject and frame his actions thereto, for examples sake to his subjects … [He ended up setting a precedent and duty of the crown that has been even harder for some royal family members to keep up with: the setting of example for the subjects sake. Sovereign acts that had been contrary to law had previously been good of bad for the realm as the case would be, but after James' statement, all were bad as they had set poor example for the common folk who must always obey.

As an absolute Queen I cannot submit to orders, nor can I submit to the laws of the land without injury to myself, the King my son, and all other sovereign princes.

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.