Garth Nix Quotes

There are always signs that a reign is ending, and they are usually spotted not in the king himself but in his court. In the inner circle, latent jealousies between advisers spill into open conflict, as they angrily debate who is to blame for the calamity, chewing over each other's past errors and pointing the finger at old and nascent enemies.

In classical times, it was a capital offense to speculate upon the hour of a king's death or upon the identity of his successor.

I beheld absolutism in all its power; and I felt encouraged to enter into a struggle against Augustin I.

Sovereignty and kingship are never decided by academic debate. They are seized by force.

The Welfare Party will come to power either peacefully or with bloodshed.

England, you know, hath been conquered and enslaved divers times, and the best laws that England hath (viz Magna Charta) were got by our forefathers’ importunate petitioning unto the kings, that still were their task-masters; and yet these best laws are yokes and manacles, tying one sort of people to be slaves to another...

Politics is much more dangerous than war, because in war they can only kill you once.

The monarchy and aristocracy have all possible motives for endeavoring to obtain unlimited power over the persons and property of the community. The consequence is inevitable: they have all possible motives for combining to obtain that power.

Unlike monarchs, who pass power to their heirs at the moment of death to ensure the survival of the regime, tyrants must simply survive as long as possible.

Magna Carta and the Civil War were about the power to tax.

If you're going to take a shot at the king. You know, you'd better kill him.

People who had empires, unfortunately, want them back eventually, somehow, someway.

Princes, kings, and other rulers of the world have used all their strength and cunning against the Church, yet it continues to endure and hold its own.

When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.

As wit is too hard for power in council, so power is too hard for wit in action.

A nation usually renews its youth on a political sick-bed, and there finds again the spirit which it had gradually lost in seeking and maintaining power.

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.

Our political parties exist for no other reason than to win power; they are not ideological debating societies designed to present a particular political philosophy and to persuade voters to accept it.

The exercise of power in this century has meant for all of us in the United States not arrogance, but agony.

The great question which, in all ages, has disturbed mankind, and brought on them the greatest part of their mischiefs ... has been, not whether be power in the world, nor whence it came, but who should have it.

Right is the royal ruler alone; and he who rules with least restraint comes nearest to empire.

How widely its agencies vary,- To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,- As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary.

Power is not a means; it is an end.

When a war is waged by two opposing groups of robbers for the sake of deciding who shall have a freer hand to oppress more people, then the question of the origin of the war is of no real economic or political significance.