Helen Mirren Quotes

There is no place for kings in the new European order

I'm a Republican, but I like the Queen. Like everyone else, I'm sentimental about the Queen.

No person is more convinced than I am of the necessity of giving great splendour and energy to the great hereditary magistracy exercised by the king; but in a free country, there can only be citizens and public officers.

We make a great mistake in supposing all people are capable of self-government.

Now one of two things is true: Either a republic is a desirable form of government, or else it is not.

We have come from the divine right of kings to the divine right of the governed.

The democratic element has a fortunate effect in the political sphere when it is balanced by another force. We have this advantage over our neighbors, the Americans, who have extreme democracy.

I do not conceive God did ever ordain [democracy] as a fit government for either church or commonwealth …. As for monarchy and aristocracy, they are both clearly approved and directed in the Scriptures.

I wonder what she [his grandmother Queen Victoria] would have thought of a Labor Government?

Our founding fathers created a system of government of men, not of angels.

I am sensible that there are defects in our federal government, yet they are so much lighter than those of monarchies, that I view them with much indulgence. I rely, too, on the good sense of the people for remedy, whereas the evils of monarchical government are beyond remedy. If any of our countrymen wish for a King, give them Aesop's fable of the frogs who asked a King; if this does not cure them, send them to Europe. They will go back good republicans.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another.

Democracy sounded well and good, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a more practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man, than to find many of them.

It conducts human societies to the true republic, that dream of all generous souls, which in our time can be realized in Europe only by constitutional monarchy.

The Republic established by the founders was a fragile experiment in a world bestrode by kings, queens, emperors, czars, dictators, and theories of aristocracy.

My mom was a Democrat and I was scared to death that she was gonna blow it. First I was going to hell with Monroe, and now to Republican hell with Nixon.

I don't know whether it's age or maturity, but I certainly find myself committed more and more to the looser forms of Western democracy at any price.

You have to have been a Republican to know how good it is to be a Democrat.

The British have always coped without becoming a dictatorship.

In nation after nation, democracy has taken the place of autocracy.

Naturally, I'm conservative; I'm a Republican. I always was.

The aim of my life is the overthrow of monarchy.

Democracy is a good client.

It is important to remember that some of the most serious thinkers once thought that democracy was not compatible with the cultures of Germany, Italy, Japan, Latin America and Russia.

If I was to say what I am, I'd be a Labour man. I like Tony Blair a lot, I think he's a good man. And in America I'd definitely be a Democrat; I'd never be a Republican.