Self Ruler Quotes & Sayings

According to Plato, the wise man is the best ruler precisely because he doesn't care unduly about political honor and power, much less about bodily pleasures. He is too absorbed in the pleasures of learning to be tempted by the lesser pleasures of glory, wealth, and hedonism. His rule is therefore benevolent and unmarred by self-interest, because the passions which in lesser men would be absorbed in material goods and sensual pleasures are sluiced off into the pleasures of the mind. The — Waller R Newell

Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things ... " she held up four big-knuckled fingers. " ... the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these things are as nothing ... " She closed her fingers into a fist. " ... without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition! — Frank Herbert

Ideology is a straight-edge ruler in a fractal universe. — Marilynne Robinson

Christ was crucified by the Jews who had wanted a temporal ruler to rescue them from the oppressive Roman authorities. Instead God sent them a spiritual leader to rescue them from their sins ... He was not what the Jews had expected so they considered Him a threat. Thus He was put to death. — Paul Weyrich

In Christianity this evolution lasted centuries; in Bolshevism - only decades. If Lenin was the St. Paul of Marxism, who set out to transplant the movement from its original environment into new lands, Stalin was already its Constantine the Great. He was, to be sure, not the first Emperor to embrace Marxism, but the first Marxist revolutionary to become the autocratic ruler of a vast empire. — Isaac Deutscher

Using someone else's ruler to measure your self-worth will always leave you short. — Charles F. Glassman

In the official imperial theology, the titles "Son of God" and "Lord" usually applied to the emperor and the word "gospel" referred to his achievements. By speaking of Jesus in these terms, Paul was tacitly inviting the Roman community to declare its loyalty to the true ruler of the universe. Members were to become co-conspirators with him in acknowledging that, unbeknownst to the powers that be, a fundamental change had occurred when God had vindicated the crucified Messiah.49 — Karen Armstrong

An immovable object and an unstoppable force
don't exist in universe which ruled by single ruler. — Toba Beta

Self-correction makes me check the ruler of my life against the yardstick of my inner voice. I acknowledge when I don't measure up. Self-correction is an ongoing process. If done often enough, I can stop myself from straying off the path. — Stella Payton

One possessing Vairagya does not understand by Atman the individual ego but the All-pervading Lord, residing as the Self and Internal Ruler in all. He is perceivable by all as the sum total. — Swami Vivekananda

Why are you all quarrelling about whether certain miracles were or were not performed nineteen centuries ago in Palestine? Why must you be certain of those particular miracles, before you can believe in God? To-day, at this very moment, you are surrounded by miracles. Birth, death, sunrise, springtime, winter - are not all these miracles? You have forgotten them because you see them every day. In your silly self-conceit, you assure yourselves that all this is perfectly natural, and that science has long ago explained it all - but you forget that your science has only noted the existence of these miracles, and that their secret belongs as much as ever to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe in whom you find it so difficult to believe. — Aimee Dostoyevsky

Egotism erects its center in itself; love places it out of itself in the axis of the universal whole. Love aims at unity, egotismat solitude. Love is the citizen ruler of a flourishing republic, egotism is a despot in a devastated creation. — August Wilhelm Von Schlegel

The man who looks to nature for God ends with a riddle instead of with God — Arnold Albert Van Ruler

When Angra conquered my kingdom sixteen years ago, he did so by breaking our Royal Conduit. And when a conduit is broken in defense of a kingdom, the ruler of that kingdom becomes the conduit themselves. Their body, their life force - it all merges with the magic. No one knows this, save for me, Angra, and the woman whose death turned me into Winter's conduit: my mother. — Sara Raasch

Just carrying a ruler with you in your pocket should be forbidden, at least on a moral basis. The ruler is the symbol of the new illiteracy. The ruler is the symptom of the new disease, disintegration of our civilisation. — Friedensreich Hundertwasser

I am Poseidon, EARTH SHAKER, RULER OF THE BOUNDLESS SEA, CREATOR OF STORMS, SWALLOWER OF SHIPS — George O'Connor

Scientists are cautiously beginning to question the view that the brain is the sole and absolute ruler over the body. The gut not only possesses an unimaginable number of nerves, those nerves are also unimaginably different from those of the rest of the body. The gut commands an entire fleet of signaling substances, nerve-insulation materials, and ways of connecting. There is only one other organ in the body that can compete with the gut for diversity - the brain. The gut's network of nerves is called the "gut brain" because it is just as large and chemically complex as the gray matter in our heads. Were the gut solely responsible for transporting food and producing the occasional burp, such a sophisticated nervous system would be an odd waste of energy. Nobody would create such a neural network just to enable us to break wind. There must be more to it than that. — Giulia Enders

He who outrages benevolence is called a ruffian: he who outrages righteousness is called a villain. I have heard of the cutting off of the villain Chow, but I have not heard of the putting of a ruler to death. — Mencius

By being the master of the house. Back in America the woman is the ruler of the home, but in England everything revolves around the man. — Lisa Kleypas

Haemon: No city is property of a single man.
Creon: But custom gives possession to the ruler.
Haemon: You'd rule a desert beautifully alone. — Sophocles

Well, then he would be at war with the government, and death was an unfortunate side effect of any revolution. Change always had a price tag. But once he took over, the people would realize he was a better ruler than the disorganized, self-interested mob that called themselves Congress
men who didn't know anything, being led by a president who knew even less. — C.J. Hill

For now, Lady Queen," he said, "allow us to continue to obey you. But give us honorable instructions, Lady Queen," he said, turning a flushed face to hers. "Ask us to do honorable things, so that we may have the honor of obeying you. — Kristin Cashore

If you want everything to be nice and straight all the time, then go live in a world made with a triungular ruler. — Haruki Murakami

The subconscious part in us is called the subjective mind, because it does not decide and command. It is subject rather than a ruler. Its nature is to do what it is told, or what really in your heart of hearts you desire. — William Thomas Walsh

Ram, can't you see it doesn't matter anymore what I do, but you, you're still needed at home. You go. If my people are still there, tell them the truth. Let them rejoice that Fergox took me away before I could do any more damage to my country."

"No, I refuse that mission, Princess. See, you are still ordering me around like a ruler--it's in you, it's what you are meant to be, no matter what others are telling you. I've given my word that I'll only escape with you by my side. So forget about yourself for a moment: if you care anything about me, about the fate of my country and yours, you are coming with me or I don't go."

"But, Ram--"

"You've got my little horse still?"

She nodded.

"I believe that in the Islands it is understood that when you accepted it, you took responsibility for my soul. I'm holding you to that, Tashi. — Julia Golding

Long, long ago, before I was a tormented artist, afflicted with longing yet incapable of forming durable attachments, long before this, I was a glorious ruler uniting all of a divided country - so I was told by the fortune-teller who examined my palm. Great things, she said, are ahead of you, or perhaps behind you; it is difficult to be sure. And yet, she added, what is the difference? Right now you are a child holding hands with a fortune-teller. All the rest is hypothesis and dream. — Louise Gluck

It was never wise for a ruler to eschew the trappings of power, for power itself flows in no small measure from such trappings. — George R R Martin

Most astonishing of all to the citizens of Constantinople, however, was the emperor's habit of wandering in disguise through the streets of the capital, questioning those he met about their concerns and ensuring that merchants were charging fair prices for their wares. Once a week, accompanied by the blare of trumpets, he would ride from one end of the city to the other, encouraging any who had complaints to seek him out. Those who stopped him could be certain of a sympathetic ear no matter how powerful their opponent. One story tells of a widow who approached the emperor and made the startling claim that the very horse he was riding had been stolen from her by a senior magistrate of the city. Theophilus dutifully looked into the matter, and when he discovered that the widow was correct, he had the magistrate flogged and told his watching subjects that justice was the greatest virtue of a ruler.* — Lars Brownworth

Being a ruler is, contrary to popular notions, a calling of self-sacrifice. That is, if one wants to be a good ruler. — S.D. Smith

It must not be supposed that happiness will demand many or great possessions; for self-sufficiency does not depend on excessive abundance, nor does moral conduct, and it is possible to perform noble deeds even without being ruler of land and sea: one can do virtuous acts with quite moderate resources. This may be clearly observed in experience: private citizens do not seem to be less but more given to doing virtuous actions than princes and potentates. It is sufficient then if moderate resources are forthcoming; for a life of virtuous activity will be essentially a happy life. — Aristotle.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Your real self - the 'I am I' - is master of this land, the ruler of this empire. You rightfully have power and dominion over it, all its inhabitants, and all contained in its realm. — Robert Collier

Character is fate, the Greeks believed. A hundred years of German philosophy went into the making of this decision in which the seed of self-destruction lay embedded, waiting for its hour. The voice was Schlieffen's, but the hand was the hand of Fichte who saw the German people chosen by Providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe, of Hegel who saw them leading the world to a glorious destiny of compulsory Kultur, of Nietzsche who told them that Supermen were above ordinary controls, of Treitschke who set the increase of power as the highest moral duty of the state, of the whole German people, who called their temporal ruler the "All-Highest." What made the Schlieffen plan was not Clausewitz and the Battle of Cannae, but the body of accumulated egoism which suckled the German people and created a nation fed on "the desperate delusion of the will that deems itself absolute." The — Barbara W. Tuchman

Authority is essential to society, but what we called in King Lear "transcendental" authority, with an executive ruler on top, depends on the ruler's understanding of equity. If he hasn't enough of such understanding, authority becomes a repressive legalism. Legalism of this sort really descends from what is called in the Bible the knowledge of good and evil. This was forbidden knowledge, because, as we'll see, it's not a genuine knowledge at all: it can't even tell us anything about good and evil. This kind of knowledge came into the world along with the discovery of self-conscious sex, when Adam and Eve knew that they were naked, and the thing that repressive legalism ever since has been most anxious to repress is the sexual impulse. — Northrop Frye

Time now to consider the compacts that hold the world together: the compact between ruler and ruled, and that between husband and wife. Both of these arrangements rest on a sedulous devotion the one to the interests of the other. The master and husband protect and provide; the wife and servant obey. Above masters, above husbands, God rules all. He counts up our petty rebellions, our human follies. He reaches out his long arm, hand bunched into a fist.
It is time to say what England is, her scope and boundaries: not to count and measure her harbor defenses and border walls, but to estimate her capacity for self-rule. It is time to say what a king is, and what trust and guardianship he owes his people: what protection from foreign incursions moral or physical, what freedom from the pretensions of those who would like to tell an Englishman how to speak to his God. — Hilary Mantel

In a democracy private citizens see a man of their own rank in life who becomes possessed of riches and power in a few years; this spectacle excites their surprise and envy, and they are led to inquire how the person who was yesterday very equal is today their ruler. To attribute his rise to his talents or his virtues is unpleasant; for it is tacitly to acknowledge that they are themselves less virtuous and less talented than he was. — Alexis De Tocqueville

The pendulum has overcorrected from the cruel era of rapping a disobedient child's knuckles with a ruler to
giving every child a trophy for showing up. Every child should have the experience of being loved unconditionally, supported, and encouraged,
but this requires more than a standing ovation every time he or she enters the room. — Ramani Durvasula

Paul believed that self-control was so important that when he had opportunity to witness to a very important ruler, it was one of the three main topics he spoke about.3 But Paul wasn't the only one who talked about it. Peter also
wrote about self-control and said that it helps us to avoid becoming useless and unfruitful. He wrote that Christians are to strive diligently to grow in moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love (2 Peter 1:5-7). All of these virtues are intertwined and are necessary for your usefulness and fruitfulness to Christ. Growing in these qualities is so important that "he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins" (2 Peter 1:9). — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

In many cities, tyrants were able to seize power by offering to protect the poorer citizens against the rich or vice versa. "Tyrant" is a word with an unlovely ring to it, but did not inevitably imply that a ruler was brutal or self-seeking, only that he had acquired power unconstitutionally, and governed as a sole ruler. — Alan Ryan

If there is one ruler that can harmonize and unify the mob of characters [in our astral body], it is the Ego (the Higher Ego, or Self, or Spirit). The more the Ego shines like a sun at the center of gravity of the astral body, the more the different characters start orbiting around it. Instead of working only to satisfy their own selfish desires, the characters start manifesting the purposes of the light and of the Spirit. Instead of plotting for the success of their own ambitions, they start accomplishing the works of the Higher Self ... The unveiling of the Self begins a process of unification
a new astral body slowly develops. In this new, or transformed, astral body, the different parts are penetrated by the light of the Self. Therefore they are not only united around the Self, but are also cemented to it ... [Before this process], one is nothing more than an appearance: it is the illusion of being one person ... — Samuel Sagan

Love or affection towards an individual or nation, is indicated by good action snot merely be words. The adoration towards nation is expressed by works of welfare equally done by the ruler and theruled. The ruler himself must be engatged, in welfare of th country and also should select officials examining their involvement with the public god. Self-centered people greedy of the power should be kept away — Chanakya

Conscious of my own weakness, I can only seek fervently the guidance of the Ruler of the Universe, and, relying on His all-powerful aid, do my best to restore Union and peace to a suffering people, and to establish and guard their liberties and rights. — George B. McClellan

Your mind is your kingdom, and there you are ruler — Jack Addington

Bare is back," says the Norse proverb, "without brother behind it;" and this is, by analogy, true of an elective magistracy. The hereditary ruler in any critical emergency may reckon on the inexhaustible resources of prestige, of sentiment, of superstition, of dependent interest, while the new man must slowly and painfully create all these out of the unwilling material around him, by superiority of character, by patient singleness of purpose, by sagacious presentiment of popular tendencies and instinctive sympathy with the national character. Mr. Lincoln's task was one of peculiar and exceptional difficulty. — James Russell Lowell

A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation. — Zhuangzi

A lot happens when the prince and princess live happily ever after--the king, his father, dies, so he is now ruler and she his queen, they have their children, she conducts discreet affairs with Sir Lancelot, there are border uprisings...but still the story ended when the love toward which their destinies drove them came to mutual consciousness when they knew, each knowing the other knew, that they were meant for each other. — Arthur C. Danto

I hold it to be the most monstrous proposition ever uttered within the Senate that conquering a country like Mexico, the President can constitute himself a despotic ruler without the slightest limitation on his power. If all this be true, war is indeed dangerous! — John C. Calhoun

If during the Reformation you were a Catholic who lived in a part of Germany in which Lutheranism was the ascendant religion and the ruler of the province or the region was Lutheran, to stay a Catholic, you either had to be a dissenter or you had to leave. — Susan Jacoby

In every big-budget science fiction movie there's the moment when a spaceship as large as New York suddenly goes to light speed. A twanging noise like a wooden ruler being plucked over the edge of a desk, a dazzling refraction of light, and suddenly the stars have all been stretched out thin and it's gone. This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And you didn't have the special rainbow effects. And it probably wasn't going at more than two hundred miles an hour. And instead of a pulsing whine sliding up the octaves, it just went putputputputput ...
VROOOOSH.
But it was exactly like that anyway. — Neil Gaiman

What you are witnessing is the face of war a great ruler seldom sees, my lady," Master Lo Feng said to her. Her veiled face turned his way, listening. "No matter how righteous the cause, no matter who wins, the commonfolk suffer. Without plenty, the wealthy lack compassion for the poor, hoarding without sharing. Without law, the strong bully the weak, stealing by force. People will go hungry. Some will starve. Men and women will be forced to choose between feeding their parents and their children. — Jacqueline Carey

A ruler who discerning justice refuseth to it the sanction of law, demanding abnegation of rights and self-sacrifice, will not drive his subjects to these virtues, virtuous only if free, but by unnaturally making justice unlawful, will drive them rather to rebellion against all law. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Just as the banqueteers are drunk from wine, the citizens are drunk from fears, hopes, desires, and aversions and are therefore in need of being ruled by a man who is sober. — Leo Strauss

We can try to act civilized and polite, but at the bottom of it all, the power of any ruler is based on a threat. Fortunately, we don't have to carry that threat out too often. — David Eddings

That's almost cute: Don't forget your ruler on your first day at cult! But where is 'down below'? — Robin Sloan

People trust too much in themselves. What they take for truth, they let rule their lives, and if I set out to find a way to live so I will be in control of my life, then I actually lose control, because the thing I have decided on, my truth, becomes the ruler and I become it's servant. And how can I be free to evolve if I'm submitting myself to a ruler, any ruler, even if that ruler is me? — Steve Toltz

It (Tao) is eternally without desire. So, it can be called small. All things return to it, although it does not make itself their ruler. So, it can be called great. — Laozi

Human society: it is an attempt - so I teach - a long seeking: it seeketh however the ruler! - An attempt, my brethren! And NO "contract"! Destroy, I pray you, destroy that word of the soft-hearted and half-and-half! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Think about a moment, a little centimeter of time you'd happily exist in forever, if time could be laid out along the spine of a ruler. Maybe it haunts you in that blue inch of half consciousness just before you're fully awake. — Kate Ellison

We are to allow one thing to be really and truly distinct from the other, to be its own genuine self. There is a logical and philosophical urge in thinking men to reduce all things to a single unity. But this urge of the natural reason tends to petrify the heart. There is no single essence to which all existing things belong, no single essence which makes all things basically one. The only true unity of created things is the unity created by love. The heart embraces all things in their great variety and the heart loves them all. — Arnold Albert Van Ruler

A soldier came to Hakuin and asked "Is there really a paradise and a hell?"
"Who are you?" inquired Hakuin.

"I am a samurai," the warrior replied.

"You, a samurai!" exclaimed Hakuin. "What kind of ruler would have you as his guard? Your face looks like that of a beggar!"

The soldier became so angry that he began to draw his sword, but Hakuin continued. "So you have a sword! Your weapon is probably as dull as your head!"

As the soldier drew his sword Hakuin remarked "Here open the gates of hell!"

At these words, the samurai, perceiving the discipline of the master, sheathed his sword and bowed.

"Here open the gates of paradise," said Hakuin — Hakuin Ekaku

One of the most important long-term changes that arose as a result of this case was the creation of the "murder bag" for use by police. Spilsbury had been shocked to see police officers having to remove rotting flesh and body parts from the scene of the crime using their bare hands. To address this problem, a series of meetings were held between Scotland Yard and Spilsbury, which led to the development of the murder bag, which contained rubber gloves, tweezers, evidence bags, a magnifying glass, compass, ruler, and swabs. Such a bag is now an essential part of any major inquiry and may contain various items, depending on the specific department. Common modern additions include a fiberglass brush, lifting tape, powder, utility knife, scissors, a blood test, a semen test, swabs, alcohol hand spray, scalpels, and goggles — Nigel McCrery

True courtesy," he continued, "earns the name. It is courtesy that is truthful. When the plebeian kneels to the monarch, he is offering his neck. He offers it because he knows his ruler can take it if he wishes. Common people like that say-or rather, they used to say, in older and better times - that I have no love of truth. But the truth is that it is precisely truth that I love, an open acknowledgment of fact. — Gene Wolfe

It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity, not female submission; it can be proved by the simplest of all tests. No ruler would deliberately dress up in the recognized fetters of a slave; no judge would would appear covered with broad arrows. But when men wish to be safely impressive, as judges, priests or kings, they do wear skirts, the long, trailing robes of female dignity. The whole world is under petticoat government; for even men wear petticoats when they wish to govern. — G.K. Chesterton

Sin, in the final analysis, is rebellion against the sovereign Creator, Ruler, and Judge of the universe. It resists the rightful prerogative of a sovereign Ruler to command obedience from His subjects. It says to an absolutely holy and righteous God that His moral laws, which are a reflection of His own nature, are not worthy of our wholehearted obedience. — Jerry Bridges

Pakistan's ruler Pervez Musharraf predicted the Taliban will fall for hiding Osama bin Laden. Ex-king Zahir Shah is standing by to replace Mullah Mohammed Omar. And the most ominous sign of all, President Bush has learned all their names. — Argus Hamilton

In order to become the master, a ruler must profess to be a servant of the people. — Ashwin Sanghi

Observe this fact: in the history of mankind, every ruler who has lacked personal greatness has been forced to compensate for the deficiency by setting up the executioner at his right hand like a guardian angel — Alfred De Vigny

He forced himself to smile -not out of pleasure, and not out of satisfaction. He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler -and to himself- that he wasn't beaten. No, he wasn't going to walk away. He wasn't finished yet. Not by far. — Brandon Sanderson

Yehya would never admit that he was just a single, powerless man in a society where rules and restrictions were stronger than everything else, stronger than the ruler himself, stronger — Basma Abdel Aziz

18. A sovereign cannot raise an army because he is enraged, nor can a general fight because he is resentful. For while an angered man may again be happy, and resentful man again be pleased, a state that has perished cannot be restored, nor can the dead be brought back to life. 19. Therefore, the enlightened ruler is prudent and the good general is warned against rash action. Thus, the state is kept secure and the army preserved. — Sun Tzu

She was a fever from which I will never recover. All heat and hunger. She inflamed my senses. And when she devoured my very soul, when I had nothing left to surrender, she abandoned me to the wreckage of my self, and smiled. In the kingdom of passion the ruler is obsession. — Calvin Klein

I feel like we are reintroducing historical figures, with the explorer Marco Polo and the grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, the ruler of the Mongol empire, the trading place that everybody wanted to get involved in. — Benedict Wong

No man is a complete ruler or dictator. He is only the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers. As long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them. — Louis L'Amour

Doesn't it follow that a ship's captain or ruler won't seek and order what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to a sailor? He reluctantly agreed. So, then, Thrasymachus, no one in any position of rule, insofar as he is a ruler, seeks or orders what is advantageous to himself, but what is advantageous to his subjects; the ones of whom he is himself the craftsman. It is to his subjects and what is advantageous and proper to them that he looks, and everything he says and does he says and does for them. — Plato