Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma Quotes

Once, when a British Prime Minister sneezed, men half a world away would blow their noses. Now when a British Prime Minister sneezes nobody else will even say 'Bless You'.

The trouble of the king becomes the trouble of the subject, for how shall we live if judgement is withheld, or if faulty decisions are promulgated?

Politics is its own world. It is a court and if the king's eye lights on you, you are a powerful figure. If the king's eye wanders elsewhere, you are out, whatever your title.

[Sir Robert] Walpole was a minister given by the King to the people. [William] Pitt [the Elder] was a minister given to the King—as an adjunct.

Your governor is but a subject of King Charles of England. I shall not treat with a subject. I shall treat of peace only with the King, my brother. When he comes, I am ready.

After you've watched your dad beat the crap out of Charlie King or some other bad guy in about forty movies, you pretty much always said, 'Yes, sir,' and meant it.

People said I was king, but I was never king, and I say I'm the prime minister.

Governance in India comes in the iron-clad armour of bureaucracy. Anyone in uniform considers it his or her right that we regard them as some sort of deity.

You can't try to keep someone against their will, or it's difficult to get them to listen or have the right mentality.

This democracy is not by the people, of the people, for the people. This democracy is about by the party high command, of the party high command, and for the party high command.

Because God says that he raises up and places all people in places of authority, it is God who raises up a king. It is God that sets one down.

I like to refer to myself as king sometimes, not as queen. That's a conscious decision, because I feel like women are just equally as powerful.

The closer you get to Number 10 the more you see what a back-breaking job that is, the pressure is absolutely constant and the loss of privacy is almost complete so I don't have ambitions in that direction and there is no vacancy nor likely to be during my time in politics.

The label 'wife of the prime minister' is like a giant signboard pointing at my head from a Monty Python sketch. But I am not Mrs. Prime Minister. I'm a human being.

When you're the king of someplace, you don't voluntarily leave.

I think power will do anything to survive and one of its main techniques is the rule of exceptions. So it makes an exception out of people and we worship them, whether that's Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. These people become beatified beyond recognition.

It's one of the guiding philosophies of my life - not fearing any authority on earth.

I will support Ireland at rugby, but when England and Ireland are playing, I sit on the fence.

I had to divorce my husband, the prime minister. I found it terribly overwhelming.

It is a British legacy that we have such a strict hierarchy that we can't even write a letter to our PM.

Nonviolence is an intensely active force when properly understood and used.

When it comes to power, outshining the master is perhaps the worst mistake of all.

Obedience simulates subordination as fear of the police simulates honesty.

There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.

Given lesser opportunities, Kissinger would have done very well as a talk show host. Fortunately for him, although not so fortunately for the United States, he found his patron in Nelson Rockefeller instead of William Paley.