Richelieu Cardinal Quotes & Sayings

We may employ artifice to deceive a rival, anything against our enemies. — Cardinal Richelieu

To know how to disguise is the knowledge of kings. — Cardinal Richelieu

I do not sleep to let others sleep in the shade of my waking. — Cardinal Richelieu

Did you think I was immortal? — Cardinal Richelieu

War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men. — Cardinal Richelieu

This Prince of the Church reserved one of his rooms for cats, where overseers fed them chicken pates twice a day. When he died the overseers and cats were provided for.Cardinal Richelieu, who had dozens of cats, built a cattery at Versailles in which to house them. — Cardinal Richelieu

Kissinger traces the balances made in foreign policy, including that of realism and idealism, from the times of Cardinal Richelieu through chapters on Theodore Roosevelt the realist and Woodrow Wilson the idealist. Kissinger, a European refugee who has read Metternich more avidly than Jefferson, is unabashedly in the realist camp. "No other nation," he wrote in Diplomacy, "has ever rested its claim to international leadership on its altruism." Other Americans might proclaim this as a point of pride; when Kissinger says it, his attitude seems that of an anthropologist examining a rather unsettling tribal ritual. The practice of basing policy on ideals rather than interests, he pointed out, can make a nation seem dangerously unpredictable. — Walter Isaacson

I have the consolation of leaving your kingdom in the highest degree of glory and of reputation. — Cardinal Richelieu

Never write a letter and never destroy one. — Cardinal Richelieu

Reason must be the universal rule and guide; all things must be done according to reason without allowing oneself to be swayed by emotion. — Cardinal Richelieu

In those times panics were common, and few days passed without some city or other registering in its archives an event of this kind. There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. Then, in addition to these concealed or public, secret or open wars, there were robbers, mendicants, Huguenots, wolves, and scoundrels, who made war upon everybody. The citizens always took up arms readily against thieves, wolves or scoundrels, often against nobles or Huguenots, sometimes against the king, but never against cardinal or Spain. It resulted, then, from this habit that on the said first Monday of April, 1625, the citizens, on hearing the clamor, and seeing neither the red-and-yellow standard nor the livery of the Duc de Richelieu, rushed toward the hostel of the Jolly Miller. When arrived there, the cause of the hubbub was apparent to all. — Alexandre Dumas

If God forbade drinking, would He have made wine so good? — Cardinal Richelieu

Nothing so upholds the laws as the punishment of persons whose rank is as great as their crime. — Cardinal Richelieu

A single word has sometimes lost or won an empire ... — Cardinal Richelieu

Carry on any enterprise as if all future success depended on it. — Cardinal Richelieu

Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state. — Cardinal Richelieu

When people are too comfortable, it is not possible to restrain them within the bounds of their duty? They may be compared to mules who, being accustomed to burdens, are spoilt by rest rather than labour. — Cardinal Richelieu

Give me six lines written by the most honorable person alive, and I shall find enough in them to condemn them to the gallows. — Cardinal Richelieu

Bakers of bread rolls and pastry cooks will not buy grain before eleven o'clock in winter and noon in summer; bakers of large loaves will not buy grain before two o'clock. This will enable the people of the town to obtain their supply first. Bakers shall put a distinctive trademark on their loaves, and keep weights and scales in their shops, under penalty of having their licenses removed. — Cardinal Richelieu

One must believe neither the people of the palace, who ordinarily measure the power of the king by the shape of his crown, which, being round, has no end, nor those who, in the excesses of an indiscreet zeal, proclaim themselves openly as partisans of Rome. — Cardinal Richelieu

Wise judges are we of each other! — Cardinal Richelieu

In the 17th century, the French statesman Cardinal Richelieu famously said, "Show me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough therein to hang him." Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin's secret police in the old Soviet Union, declared, "Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime." Both were saying the same thing: if you have enough data about someone, you can find sufficient evidence to find him guilty of something. — Bruce Schneier

A virtuous and well-disposed person, like a good metal, the more he is fired, the more he is fined; the more he is opposed, the more he is approved: wrongs may well try him, and touch him, but cannot imprint in him any false stamp. — Cardinal Richelieu

Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles. — Cardinal Richelieu

Nothing is as dangerous for the state as those who would govern kingdoms with maxims found in books. — Cardinal Richelieu

To know how to dissimulate is the knowledge of kings. — Cardinal Richelieu

I have never had any [enemies] other than those of the state. — Cardinal Richelieu

Who will be my equal? — Cardinal Richelieu

Harshness towards individuals who flout the laws and commands of the state is for the public good; no greater crime against the public interest is possible than to show leniency to those who violate it. — Cardinal Richelieu

To mislead a rival, deception is permissable; one may use all means against his enemies. — Cardinal Richelieu

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him. — Cardinal Richelieu

The Thirty Years' War, 1618-1648, was a series of conflicts that became the last great struggle of religious wars in Europe. It was fought almost exclusively on German soil ... but before the war ended, it involved most of the nations of Europe. The underlying cause of the war was the deep-seated hostility between the German Protestants and German Catholics - with the Jesuits and Cardinal Richelieu, who was the real ruler of France, fanning the fires to accomplish their ends. — John Daniel

Not the least of the qualities that go into the making of a great ruler is the ability of letting others serve him. — Cardinal Richelieu

Friendship is the medicine for all misfortune; but ingratitude dries up the fountain of all goodness. — Cardinal Richelieu

I was excellent. Everybody loved me. I love myself, and I like bums. — Cardinal Richelieu

Upon learning of Cardinal Richelieu's death, Pope Urban VIII is alleged to have said, If there is a God, the Cardinal de Richelieu will have much to answer for. If not ... well, he had a successful life. — Henry Kissinger

First, all means to conciliate; failing that, all means to crush. — Cardinal Richelieu

The presence of cats exercises such a magic influence upon highly organized men of intellect. This is why these long-tailed Graces of the animal kingdom ... have been the favorite animal of a Mahommed, Cardinal Richelieu, Crebillon, Rousseau, Wieland. — Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

To know how to dissemble is the knowledge of kings.
[Fr., Savoir dissimuler est le savoir des rois.] — Cardinal Richelieu