A Monarchy Quotes & Sayings

No. I am not a royalist. Not at all. I am definitely a republican in the British sense of the word. I just don't see the use of the monarchy though I'm fierce patriot. I'm proud proud proud of being English, but I think the monarchy symbolizes a lot of what was wrong with the country. — Daniel Radcliffe

The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. — Henry David Thoreau

Oooo, what is that?" Red yelled when she saw the palace. "That's Buckingham Palace," Alex said. "It's where the monarchy resides." Red was mesmerized. "What a stylish and tasteful place! Look at that beautiful statue out front of it in the middle of the street! That looks exactly like the statue I wanted to build in celebration of Charlie's and my wedding!" Red left the others and flew down to the gate. She peered through the bars at the palace in delight. She had to hang on to the bars tightly because the fairy dust was making her drift back to the sky. One of the palace guards on duty saw Red and stared at her in disbelief. It wasn't every day he saw a floating woman at the gate. "Yoo-hoo!" Red called to him. "I just love your hat! Please tell the current monarch that Queen Red of the Center Kingdom says hello - " Conner flew to the gate and pulled Red's hands off the bars. "Red, come on. You're gonna get left behind! — Chris Colfer

The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is, that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. — Walter Bagehot

At bottom, politics was a hullabaloo of equal and individual competitors who would only be guaranteed to cooperate for one cause: the elimination of anybody who threatened to step out of line and grab too much power for himself. It follows that there was nothing resembling today's political parties ... Since the fall of the monarchy in 510 BC, Roman domestic politics had been a long, inconclusive class struggle, suspended for long periods by foreign wars. during one never-to-be-forgotten confrontation over a debt crisis in 493 BC, the entire population withdrew its labor (14). — Anthony Everitt

To resume, in a few words, the system of the Imperial government, as it was instituted by Augustus, and maintained by those princes who understood their own interest and that of the people, it may be defined an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth. The masters of the Roman world surrounded their throne with darkness, concealed their irresistible strength, and humbly professed themselves the accountable ministers of the senate, whose supreme decrees they dictated and obeyed. — Edward Gibbon

On December 13, the tsarina suggests to the tsar: "Anything but this responsible ministry about which everybody has gone crazy. Everything is getting quiet and better, but people want to feel your hand. How long they have been saying to me, for whole years, the same thing: 'Russia loves to feel the whip.' That is their nature!" This orthodox Hessian, with a Windsor upbringing and a Byzantine crown on her head, not only "incarnates" the Russian soul, but also organically despises it. Their nature demands the whip - writes the Russian tsarina to the Russian tsar about the Russian people, just two months and a half before the monarchy tips over into the abyss. In — Leon Trotsky

For tyranny is a kind of monarchy which has in view the interest of the monarch only; oligarchy has in view the interest of the wealthy; democracy of the needy: none of them common good of all. — Aristotle.

One has met and indeed entertained many visiting heads of state, some of them unspeakable crooks and blackguards ... One has given one's white-gloved hand to hands that were steeped in blood and conversed politely with men who have personally slaughtered children. One has waded through excrement and gore ... Sometimes one has felt like a scented candle, sent in to perfume a regime, or aerate a policy, monarchy these days just a government-issue deoderant. — Alan Bennett

The worst that can happen under monarchy is rule by a single imbecile, but democracy often means the rule by an assembly of three or four hundred imbeciles. — Robert Anton Wilson

Although Wilson proclaimed neutrality, his sympathies, like those of many Americans, lay with Great Britain and France. Americans gratefully remembered crucial French assistance in the American Revolution and shared with the British a language, a culture, and a commitment to liberty. Germany, by contrast, was a monarchy with strong militaristic traditions. — Anonymous

Universal empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience,he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain. — Thomas Paine

They stood there, King of the Hill, Top of the Heap, Ruler of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs and Presidents, trying to understand what it meant to own a world and how big a world really was. — Ray Bradbury

The comparison of Rasputin and Christ was customary in that circle, and by no means accidental. The alarm of the royal couple before the menacing forces of history was too sharp to be satisfied with an impersonal God and the futile shadow of a Biblical Christ. They needed a second coming of "the Son of Man." In Rasputin the rejected and agonizing monarchy found a Christ in its own image. "If there had been no Rasputin," said Senator Tagantsev, a man of the old regime, "it would have been necessary to invent one." There is a good deal more in these words than their author imagined. — Leon Trotsky

I have often asked Americans wherein they consider their freedom superior to that of the English, but have never found them able to indicate a single point in which the individual is worse off in England as regards his private civil rights or his general liberty of doing and thinking as he pleases. They generally turn the discussion to social equality, the existence of a monarchy and hereditary titles and so forth - matters which are, of course, quite different from freedom in its proper sense. — James Bryce

Some people think the NDP may want to get rid of the monarchy but I can assure you that that's absolutely not the case. My Dad was a big time monarchist and so am I. — Jack Layton

Were I to define the British constitution, therefore, I should say, it is a limited monarchy, or a mixture of the three forms of government commonly known in the schools, reserving as much of the monarchical splendor, the aristocratical independency, and the democratical freedom, as are necessary that each of these powers may have a control, both in legislation and execution, over the other two, for the preservation of the subject's liberty. — John Adams

I turned down the OBE because its not a club you want to join when you look at the villains whove got it. Its all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest. — Ken Loach

By the end of the eighteenth century it had become clear that none of the estates or classes in the various countries was willing or able to become the new ruling class, that is to identify itself with the government as the nobility had done for centuries.8 The failure of the absolute monarchy to find a substitute within society led to the full development of the nation-state and its claim to be above all classes, completely independent of society and its particular interests, the true and only representative of the nation as a whole. — Hannah Arendt

[M]onarchy was, or ought to be, not so much absolute as mitigated by the principle of ius politicum, supporting a mixed polity partaking of elements both royal and political, which is to say, popular and representative. — Patrick Collinson

Ignorance is king. Many would not profit by his abdication. Many enrich themselves by means of his dark monarchy. They are his Court, and in his name they defraud and govern, enrich themselves and perpetuate their power. Even literacy they fear, for the written word is another channel of communication that might cause their enemies to become united. Their weapons are keen-honed, and they use them with skill. They will press the battle upon the world when their interests are threatened, and the violence which follows will last until the structure of society as it now exists is leveled to rubble, and a new society emerges. I am sorry. But that is how I see it. — Walter M. Miller Jr.

In the 20th century, the position of the monarch as head of the Church of England was given a meaning which it never had before, .. You took the fact that the monarch was head of the Church of England to mean that the British monarchy was itself a religious or moral institution and the monarchy became a symbol of national public morality. — David Starkey

It would be a foetus of monarchy! — Edmund Randolph

When [Servius Galba] was a commoner he seemed too big for his station, and had he never been emperor, no one would have doubted his ability to reign. — Tacitus

It seems to me that Sotheby's is very much like the British monarchy: an old and apparently very venerable institution which is in fact very nimble on its feet, an institution invested with a great deal more self-interest than the public image would suggest. — Robert Lacey

I do think that the legacy of the Norman conquest is still strong in Britain. Our hereditary monarchy, our established church, our ancient county structures, though hollowed out in many ways, are a direct result of what happened in 1066. — Paul Kingsnorth

The monarchy is a part of the state. It exists to serve the people. — Heather Brooke

An error in the doctrine of God will have inevitable consequences in the sphere of action, of moral behaviour, of the polity of the Church, and of basic culture and social organization. A change in the doctrine of the Trinity in either of these directions cannot help but have political consequences.

Farrell, commenting on Nazianzen's connection between Trinity and Holy Monarchy — Joseph P. Farrell

I quite like the Queen. Now, this must come as a fairly amazing statement for someone who is avowedly left wing, pro-independence and anti-monarchy, but there you go. — John Niven

What I have here advanced is confirmed by the unanimous testimony of historians, and is extremely agreeable to the nature of things. For it is clear that in a monarchy, where he who commands the execution of the laws generally thinks himself above them, there is less need of virtue than in a popular government, where the person entrusted with the execution of the laws is sensible of his being subject to their direction. — Montesquieu

Then this will only prove again and again, that Monarchy in Germany is he longer capable of a national act. — Ferdinand Lassalle

The Sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights - the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of great sense and sagacity would want no others. — Walter Bagehot

Europeans are forever the offspring of Machiavelli, trapped in a historical rollercoaster that can bring us a monarchy-toppling French Revolution and then a few years later Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor. — Loretta Napoleoni

The Exodus from Egypt, the home of sacred monarchy, reinforces this idea [desacralization of creation]: it is the 'desacralization' of social praxis ... In Egypt, work is alienated and, far from building a just society, contributes rather to increasing injustice and to widening the gap between exploiters and exploited. — Gustavo Gutierrez

By my count, the Deputy Prime Minister has sworn an oath of loyalty and service to Her Majesty no fewer than four times in the last two years, yet he has used his position as a minister of the Crown as a podium from which to rail against our history and our heritage. The minister says that instead of the monarchy he would prefer an entirely Canadian institution, but he fails to recognize that the monarchy is as Canadian as the House of Commons itself. — Elsie Wayne

There are still two forms besides democracy and oligarchy; one of them is universally recognized and included among the four principal forms of government, which are said to be (1) monarchy, (2) oligarchy, (3) democracy, and (4) the so-called aristocracy or government of the best. But there is also a fifth, which retains the generic name of polity or constitutional government; — Aristotle.

If a nation does not want a monarchy, change the nations mind. If a nation does not need a monarchy, change the nations needs. — Jan Smuts

It can only be by blinding the understanding of man, and making him believe that government is some wonderful mysterious thing, that excessive revenues are obtained. Monarchy is well calculated to ensure this end. It is the popery of government; a thing kept up to amuse the ignorant, and quiet them into taxes. — Thomas Paine

Why doesn't the United States take over the monarchy and unite with England? England does have important assets. Naturally the longer you wait, the more they will dwindle. At least you could use it for a summer resort instead of Maine. — W. H. Auden

One of my professors once told me that the last official act of the British monarchy was when Queen Victoria refused to sign a law that made same-sex acts illegal. It would have made me think more highly of her, except the reason she objected was because she didn't believe women would do anything like that. Parliament rewrote the law so it was specific to men, and she signed it. A tribute to enlightenment, Queen Victoria was not. Neither, as I have observed before, are werewolf packs. — Patricia Briggs

Wealth held by a class and used ambitiously becomes as despotic as an absolute monarchy, and has in its hands manners, customs, laws, institutions, and governments themselves. — Henry Ward Beecher

More attention should have been given to the fundamental transformation which took place during Queen Victoria's reign, from ruling sovereign to constitutional monarch. Again, gender mattered. If Albert had lived, it seems clear that he would have resisted that development much more tenaciously, which the gradual emasculation (and feminization) of monarchy was probably more easily accomplished when a woman was on the throne. — David Cannadine

I'm not a great fan of monarchy in general, but I have to say the Danish monarchy is closer to the people; it's not as stuffy as the English one. — Viggo Mortensen

Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasure. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefit from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a dictatorship, and then a monarchy. — Alexander Fraser Tytler

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

The Guchkov government is held in a vice: bound by the interests of capital, it is compelled to strive to continue the predatory, robber war, to protect the monstrous profits of capital and the landlords, to restore the monarchy. Bound by its revolutionary origin and by the need for an abrupt change from tsarism to democracy, pressed by the bread-hungry and peace-hungry masses, the government is compelled to lie, to wriggle, to play for time, to "proclaim" and promise (promises are the only things that are very cheap even at a time of madly rocketing prices) as much as possible and do as little as possible, to make concessions with one hand and to withdraw them with the other. Under — Vladimir Lenin

Anyone who has walked through the deserted palaces of Versailles or Vienna realise how much of a part of the life of a nation is lost when a monarchy is abolished. If buckingham palace and windsor castle were transformed into museums, if one politician competed against another for president of the republic, Britain would be a sadder and less interesting place. Our politicians are not men such as could challenge more than a thousand years of history. — William Rees-Mogg

How can a monarchy be a suitable thing, which allows a man to do as he pleases with none to hold him to account. And even if you were to take the best man on earth, and put him into a monarchy, you put outside him the thoughts that usually guide him. — Herodotus

Wherever, therefore, any number of men so unite into one society, as to quit everyone his executive power of the law of Nature, and to resign it to the public, there, and there only, is a political or civil society. [ ... ] Hence it is evident that absolute monarchy, which by some men [e.g., Hobbes] is counted the only government in the world, is indeed inconsistent with civil society, and so can be no form of civil government at all. — John Locke

Jordan has to show the Arab world that there's another way of doing things. We're a monarchy, yes, but if we can show democracy that leads to a two-, three-, four-party system - left, right and center - in a couple of years' time, then the Muslim Brotherhood will no longer be something to contend with. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. — Raoul Vaneigem

Citizenship is what makes a republic - monarchies can get along without it. — Mark Twain

One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion. — Thomas Paine

Monarchy is an outrage which even the blind of an entire people cannot justify ... all men hold from nature the secret mission to destroy wherever it my be found. No man can reign innocently. The folly is too evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. Do kings themselves treat otherwise those who seek to usurp their authority? — Louis Antoine De Saint-Just

[Voltaire] theoretically prefers a republic, but he knows its flaws: it permits factions which, if they do not bring on civil war, at least destroy national unity; it is suited only to small states protected by geographic situation, and as yet unspoiled and untorn with wealth; in general "men are rarely worthy to govern themselves." Republics are transient at best; they are the first form of society, arising from the union of families; the American Indians lived in tribal republics, and Africa is full of such democracies. but differentiation of economic status puts an end to these egalitarian governments; and differentiation is the inevitable accompaniment of development. — Will Durant

The Constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, Sir, they appear to me horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting - it squints towards monarchy. And does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your president may easily become king ... Where are your checks in this government? ... I would rather infinitely - and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion - have a king, lords, and commons than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. — Patrick Henry

The truth unquestionably is, that the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. — Alexander Hamilton

Bhutto brought up the coup in Afghanistan, which has resulted in deposing the country's monarchy and replacing it with a republic under a nationalist cousin of the king. Kissinger said he had discussed the matter with the Soviet Ambassador. "I told him if the recent coup in Afghanistan remained an internal Afghan affair, that would be one matter" he said, "but if it resurrected the Pashtunistan dispute, the U.S. would be engaged. This is the basic policy of the president. — Husain Haqqani

Once more, I am watching the most powerful men in the kingdom bring their power to bear on a woman who has done nothing worse than live to the beat of her own heart, see with her own eyes; but this is not their tempo nor their vision and they cannot tolerate any other. — Philippa Gregory

It is easy to conceive that a band of interested men, such as placemen, pensioners, lords of the bedchamber, lords of the kitchen, lords of the necessary-house, and the lord knows what besides, can find as many reasons for monarchy as their salaries, paid at the expense of the country, amount to; but if I ask the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and down through all the occupations of life to the common labourer, what service monarchy is to him? he can give me no answer. If I ask him what monarchy is, he believes it is something like a sinecure. — Thomas Paine

Each of us knows it all, and knows he knows it all - the rest, to a man, are fools and eluded. One man knows there is a hell, the next one knows there isn't; one man knows monarchy is best, the next one knows it isn't; one man knows high tariff is right, the next man knows it isn't; one man knows there are witches, the next one knows there aren't; one sect knows its religion is the only true one, there are sixty-four thousand five hundred million sects that know it isn't so. — Mark Twain

In the controversy that followed the prince's remarks, his most staunch defender was professor John Taylor, a scholar whose work I had last noticed when he gave good reviews to the psychokinetic (or whatever) capacities of the Israeli conjuror and fraud Uri Geller. The heir to the throne seems to possess the ability to surround himself - perhaps by some mysterious ultramagnetic force? - with every moon-faced spoon-bender, shrub-flatterer, and water-diviner within range. — Christopher Hitchens

Thatcher once said that if she were a visitor from Mars required to create a constitutional system, I would set up ... a hereditary monarchy, wonderfully trained, in duty and in leadership which understands example, which is always there, which is above politics, for which the whole nation has an affection and which is a symbol of patriotism. — Sally Bedell Smith

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water. — Fisher Ames

With a [democratic] government anyone in principle can become a member of the ruling class or even the supreme power. The distinction between the rulers and the ruled as well as the class consciousness of the ruled become blurred. The illusion even arises that the distinction no longer exists: that with a public government no one is ruled by anyone, but everyone instead rules himself. Accordingly, public resistance against government power is systematically weakened. While exploitation and expropriation before might have appeared plainly oppressive and evil to the public, they seem much less so, mankind being what it is, once anyone may freely enter the ranks of those who are at the receiving end. Consequently, [exploitation will increase], whether openly in the form of higher taxes or discretely as increased governmental money "creation" (inflation) or legislative regulation. — Hans-Hermann Hoppe

[T]here [is] no limit to what might not be achieved by an alliance between an imperial monarchy and revelations, if truly believed to be heaven-sent, of a prophet. — Tom Holland

We think of 1789 as the date of the French Revolution, and the storming of the Bastille as its defining event. Yet as late as halfway through 1792, most of the familiar images of the revolution had yet to occur. Louis XVI was still king, and the Assembly was negotiating a new constitutional arrangement for the monarchy, not so different from Britain's Glorious Revolution of 1688. — Mike Jay

To realize the Enlightenment ideals of formal equality, the rule of law, freedom of commerce, and religious toleration, Voltaire and many of the other philosophes looked to absolutist monarchs, whose policies they hoped to influence. The support of the philosophes for the expansion of the monarch's sovereign power was tactical. It arose not out of a principled belief in the throne, but out of the recognition that only a strong monarchy had the power to override the resistance to enlightened legislation by the privileged churches, estates, and corporations that made up continental European society. (p. 45) — Jerry Z. Muller

In The Knights Aristophanes gave us a picture of the final state of corruption in which the vulgar rabble ends when
just as in Tibet they worship the Dalai Lama's excrement
they contemplate their own scum in its representatives; and that, in a democracy, is a degree of corruption comparable to auctioning the crown in a monarchy. — Soren Kierkegaard

We have allowed an unholy alliance of government - the new monarchy - and corporate influence - the new aristocracy - to take control of events in a way that would have made our Founders shudder. — Marianne Williamson

My father established the first women's university in the kingdom, abolished slavery, and tried to establish a constitutional monarchy that separates the position of king from that of prime minister. — Basmah Bint Saud

What royal families are very good at doing is surviving and reinventing themselves. That's true whether it's a constitutional monarchy in Britain or an authoritarian monarchy. — Robert Lacey

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Good only for destruction - has destroyed all that was valuable in the monarchy - is destroying France with daemonic energy - this tawdry, theatrical empire - a deeply vulgar man - nothing French about him - insane ambition - the whole world one squalid tyranny. His infamous treatment of the Pope! — Patrick O'Brian

If the corrupt Jordanian monarchy were overthrown, it would be the ideal opportunity to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, because the West Bank and Jordan could then be united. There is already a Palestinian majority in Jordan, and there is enough room for everyone there. That would be the best revolution I could imagine. — Tom Segev

But there is a truth that ought to be made known; I have had the opportunity of seeing it; which is, that notwithstanding appearances, there is not any description of men that despise monarchy so much as courtiers. But they well know, that if it were seen by others, as it is seen by them, the juggle could not be kept up; they are in the condition of men who get their living by a show, and to whom the folly of that show is so familiar that they ridicule it; but were the audience to be made as wise in this respect as themselves, there would be an end to the show and the profits with it. The difference between a republican and a courtier with respect to monarchy, is that the one opposes monarchy, believing it to be something; and the other laughs at it, knowing it to be nothing. — Thomas Paine

We stand a better chance with aristocracy, whether hereditary or elective, than with monarchy. — Ezra Stiles

I know what you want. One month after the ascension of Philippe the Gullible, M. Laclos found in a gutter, deceased. Blamed on a traffic accident. Two months after, King Philippe found in a gutter, deceased - it really is a bad stretch of road. Philippe's heirs and assigns having coincidentally expired, end of the monarchy, reign of M.Danton. — Hilary Mantel

When you set aside mere names & come down to realities, you find that we are ruled by a King just as other absolute monarchies are. His name is The Majority. He is mighty in bulk & strength... He rules by the right of possessing less money & less brains & more ignorance than the other competitor for the throne, The Minority. Ours is an Absolute Monarchy. — Arthur L. Scott

While Diana finds the monarchy as presently organized a crumbling institution, she has a deep respect for the manner in which the Queen has conducted herself for the last forty years. Indeed, much as she would like to leave her husband, Diana has emphasized to her: "I will never let you down." Before she attended a garden party on a stifling July afternoon last year, a friend offered Diana a fan to take with her. She refused saying: "I can't do that. My mother-in-law is going to be standing there with her handbag, gloves, stockings and shoes." It was a sentiment expressed in admiring tones for the Sovereign's complete self-control in every circumstance, however trying. — Andrew Morton

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States." More important, all of Jefferson's specific digs at the king were preceded by one self-evident fact that obliterated any and all justifications for monarchy, aristocracy, and colonialism until the end of time, even though neither its author nor his comrades truly believed it: All men are created equal. A — Sarah Vowell

With a few exceptions, conservative Christian political activists are as ineffective as White Russian exiles, drinking tea from samovars in their Paris drawing rooms, plotting the restoration of the monarchy. One wishes them well but knows deep down that they are not the future. — Rod Dreher

We can now say with considerable confidence that the Bible is not a history of anyone's past ... The Bible's "Israel" is a literary fiction ... Not only have Adam and Eve and the flood story passed over to mythology, but we can no longer talk about a time of the patriarchs. There never was a "United Monarchy" in history and it is meaningless to speak of pre-exilic prophets and their writings ... The Bible deals with the origin traditions of a people who never existed as such — Thomas L. Thompson

I think the relation between the monarchy and the press is very much a two-way street. — Anthony Holden

Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy. It's beset by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State and Shiite extremists backed by Iran. — David Ignatius

How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy? — Alan Watts

The people of Lancre wouldn't dream of living in anything other than a monarchy. They'd done so for thousands of years and knew that it worked. But they'd also found that it didn't do to pay too much attention to what the King wanted, because there was bound to be another king along in forty years or so and he'd be certain to want something different and so they'd have gone to all that trouble for nothing. In the meantime, his job as they saw it was to mostly stay in the palace, practise the waving, have enough sense to face the right way on coins and let them get on with the ploughing, sowing, growing and harvesting. It was, as they saw it, a social contract. They did what they always did, and he let them. — Terry Pratchett

The American head of state grew up with a mother on food stamps. The British head of state grew up with a mother on postage stamps. Is that a contrast that fills you with pride? — Johann Hari

You put the small thief in prison, but the big thief lives in a palace. — Graham Greene

For a Monarchy readily becomes a Tyranny, an Aristocracy an Oligarchy, while a Democracy tends to degenerate into Anarchy. So that if the founder of a State should establish any one of these three forms of Government, he establishes it for a short time only, since no precaution he may take can prevent it from sliding into its contrary, by reason of the close resemblance which, in this case, the virtue bears to the vice. — Niccolo Machiavelli

The institution of monarchy developed during the Middle Ages against the backdrop of the previously endemic struggles between feudal power agencies. The monarchy presented itself as a referee, aa power capable of putting an end to war, violence, and pillage and saying no to these struggles and private feuds. It made itself acceptable by allocating itself a juridical and negative function, albeit one whose limits it naturally began at once to overstep. — Michel Foucault

The people under our system, like the king in a monarchy, never dies. — Martin Van Buren

The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people. — Walter Bagehot

One person can make a difference. A huge difference. Consider what a solitary individual may accomplish: In 1645 one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England. In 1649 one vote cost Charles I of England his life, causing him to be executed. In 1776 one vote gave America the English language instead of the German language. In 1839 one vote elected Mark Morgan governor of Massachusetts. In 1845 one vote brought Texas into the Union. In 1868 one vote saved President Johnson from impeachment. In 1875 one vote changed France from a monarchy to a republic. In 1876 one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the United States presidency. In 1923 one vote gave Adolf Hitler control of the Nazi party. In 1941 one vote saved the Selective Service Agency just — David Jeremiah

In running over the pages of our history for seven hundred years, we shall scarcely find a single great event which has not promoted equality of condition. The Crusades and the English wars decimated the nobles and divided their possessions: the municipal corporations introduced democratic liberty into the bosom of feudal monarchy; the invention of fire-arms equalized the vassal and the noble on the field of battle; the art of printing opened the same resources to the minds of all classes; the post-office brought knowledge alike to the door of the cottage and to the gate of the palace; and Protestantism proclaimed that all men are alike able to find the road to heaven. The discovery of America opened a thousand new paths to fortune, and led obscure adventurers to wealth and power. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Those then, who resist a confirmation of public order, are the true Artificers of monarchy - not that this is the intention of the generality of them. Yet it would not be difficult to lay the finger upon some of their party who may justly be suspected. When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper, possessed of considerable talents, having the advantage of military habits - despotic in his ordinary demeanour - known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty - when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity - to join in the cry of danger to liberty - to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion - to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day - It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may "ride the storm and direct the whirlwind. — Alexander Hamilton

The Republic is six months old, and it's flying apart. It has no cohesive force - only a monarchy has that. Surely you can see? We need the monarchy to pull the country together - then we can win the war."
Danton shook his head.
"Winners make money," Dumouriez said. "I thought you went where the pickings were richest?"
"I shall maintain the Republic," Danton said.
"Why?"
"Because it is the only honest thing there is."
"Honest? With your people in it?"
"It may be that all its parts are corrupted, vicious, but take it altogether, yes, the Republic is an honest endeavor. Yes, it has me, it has Fabre, it has Hebert - but it also has Camille. Camille would have died for it in '89."
"In '89, Camille had no stake in life. Ask him now - now he's got money and power, now he's famous. Ask him now if he's willing to die."
"It has Robespierre."
"Oh yes - Robespierre would die to get away from the carpenter's daughter, I don't doubt. — Hilary Mantel

I simply make this point, that the monarchy in so far, as it is identified with what is, in my opinion, an obsolete class structure, is making a mistake, and the task of those who are responsible for the conduct of the monarchical institution is to detach it from that class structure. — Malcolm Muggeridge

It is necessary that I should qualify the doctrine of its being not men, but measures, that I am determined to support. In a monarchy it is the duty of parliament to look at the men as well as at the measures. — Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham And Vaux

A Tory ... , since the revolution, may be defined in a few words, to be a lover of monarchy, though without abandoning liberty; anda partizan of the family of Stuart. As a Whig may be defined to be a lover of liberty though without renouncing monarchy; and a friend to the settlement in the protestant line. — David Hume