Monarchies Quotes

All power, all subordination to authority rests on the executioner …. Remove this incomprehensible agent from the world and at that very moment order gives way to chaos, thrones topple and society disappears.

Whatever faults modern democracies may have committed ..., the faults chargeable on monarchs and oligarchies have been less pardonable and more harmful to the peace and progress of mankind.

Princes, sovereigns, and king have not been given supreme authority in order to live in luxurious self-indulgence and debauchery. They have not been elevated by their fellow-men to enable them to strut about and to insult with their pride the simple-mannered, the poor, and the suffering. They have not been placed at the head of the State to keep around themselves a crowd of idle loafers whose uselessness drives them towards vice. The bad administration which may be found in monarchies springs from many different causes, but their principal cause lies in the character of the sovereign

The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.

... one of the most unjust wars ever waged by a stronger nation against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.

Kings are the publick Pillars of the State Born to sustain and prop the Nation's weight.

To Perpetual Peace

A country can live under a monarchy or a republic, with a parliamentary or a presidential system, under communism or fascism. But it cannot live in anarchy.

The Russian Czars did a great deal that was bad. They robbed and enslaved the people. They waged wars and seized territories in the interest of landowners. But they did one thing that was good—they amassed an enormous state.

The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne.

A few [South American territories] will constitute themselves as conventional federal republics; almost inevitably the larger territories will establish monarchies, some so wretched that they will devour their natural and human resources in present and future revolutions.

The Arab monarchies, especially Jordan and Morocco, are more legitimate than the false republics, with their stolen elections, regime-dominated courts and rubber-stamp parliaments.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.

It would certainly be for the good of mankind to have all the mighty empires and monarchies of the world cantoned out into petty states and principalities.

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.

A war between Austria and Russia would end either with the overthrow of the Romanovs or with the overthrow of the Hapsburgs—or perhaps the overthrow of both.

Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men without a consequent loss of liberty! I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt. Shall Liberty or Empire be Sought?

It is a miserable state of mind, to have few things to desire and many things to fear; and yet that commonly is the case of Kings.

All governments must maintain power by consent. Not by coercion.

When the people have self-confidence and high morale, they will begin to demand their rights and oppose the authorities’ policy and conduct. Indeed, it is this which the corrupt monarchies fear most. This is why they always attempt to trample upon the people’s dignity and morale, oppress them and subject them to ignominy in order to prevent the people from ever contemplating opposition and confrontations, and to make them yield and subjugate themselves to the ruling authorities. This is the nature of monarchy, which is rejected by Islam. This is what our people in the Arabian peninsula are suffering under al Saud’s rule.

Monarchy is a species of government fit only for a people too much corrupted by luxury, avarice, and a passion for pleasure, to have any love for their country, and whose vices the fear of punishment alone is able to restrain.

Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist.

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

Citizenship is what makes a republic; monarchies can get along without it.

I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.