Rulers Quotes

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“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?”
― Patrick Henry

“Antarctica. You know, that giant continent at the bottom of the earth that’s ruled by penguins and seals.”
― C.B. Cook, Twinepathy

“The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response.
To beg for the blessing of “authority” is to accept that the choice is the master’s alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.”
― Larken Rose

“ In the privacy of my dreams, I'm a warrior.”
― Kimberly Derting, The Essence

“Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of any public issue. They think that no harm will come from their neglect. They act as if it is always the business of somebody else to look after this or that. When this selfish notion is entertained by all, the commonwealth slowly begins to decay. ”
― Thucydides

“If they [Plato and Aristotle] wrote about politics it was as if to lay down rules for a madhouse.

And if they pretended to treat it as something really important it was because they knew that the madmen they were talking to believed themselves to be kings and emperors. They humoured these beliefs in order to calm down their madness with as little harm as possible.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“The common man is in the majority, so the common man holds the most power, but unfortunately they give their power away to the few who tell them to do so. If a certain threshold of people believed in their hearts that a transition to a moneyless civilization would be best, it would manifest itself in the physical world.”
― Jasun Ether, The Beasts of Success

“Should I surrender to this bliss? The love, the touch of a child!”
― Andri E. Elia, Yildun: Worldmaker of Yand

“In marriage, we’re equals. You’re not only a babymaker; I didn’t need to marry you if it was only for that. You’re my life partner. The whole nine yards of it.”
― Andri E. Elia, Yildun: Worldmaker of Yand

“Because a man plays a king superbly well does not mean that he would make a good king.”
― Louis L'Amour, Comstock Lode

“You sanctimonious philistines, who scoff at me!
What has your politics fed on
since you've been ruling the world?
On butchery and murder!”
― Charles de Coster, The Legend of the Glorious Adventures of Tyl Ulenspiegel in the Land of Flanders & Elsewhere

“...which animal the ruler should impersonate depends strongly on what animals the followers are.”
― Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind

“We have not to crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule; rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can’t.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“People like me, we’re ants, and rulers are just a big foot looming over us ready to squish us into the dirt. Doesn’t matter whose body the foot is attached to, the purpose is still the same.”
― Maya Motayne, Nocturna

“When people have rejected aristocracy, no longer believe that leadership is inherited at birth, no longer assume that the ruling class is endorsed by God, the argument about who gets to rule--who is the elite--is never over. For a long time, some people in Europe and North America settled on the idea that various forms of democratic, meritocratic, and economic competition are the fairest alternative to inherited or ordained power. But even in countries that were never occupied by the Red Army and never ruled by Latin American populists, democracy and free markets can produce unsatisfying outcomes, especially when badly regulated, or when nobody trusts the regulators, or when people are entering the contest from very different starting points. The losers of these competitions were always, sooner or later, going to challenge the value of the competition itself.”
― Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism

“Once my father said that conflicts are between rulers. Those that follow rulers can be perfectly nice, which is how you wind up with two perfectly nice people with daggers to each other's throats. Hyacinthe and I might have been friends, but for the part where we were set on opposite sides of a battlefield.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Rulers craft stories, the ruled listen.”
― Amogh Swamy, On My Way To Infinity: A Seeker's Poetic Pilgrimage

“What is governing to a man that can rule himself? If he cannot rule himself, how shall he rule others?”
― Confucius, The Analects of Confucius

“When I was an authority on many subjects, I found myself subject to the authorities.”
― Aegelis, Specks of Shadows, Flecks of Light

“صحيح أن الحرية يكرهها أكثر الحكام ورجال الدين .. ولكن لابد من قدر كبير منها ليكون هناك حكم ودين”
― أنيس منصور, في السياسة الجزء الثاني

“Gradually, human societies started extricating themselves from the worst forms of oppression. Human sacrifice and deified rulers went out of fashion. Slavery was outlawed, and privileges were taken away from nobles. Human societies regained much of the lost ground. We are still not as egalitarian as hunter-gatherers --there are the poor and the billionaires-- but we are much better off than we were during the days of god-kings.”
― Peter Turchin, Ultrasociety: How 10,000 Years of War Made Humans the Greatest Cooperators on Earth

“When there is righteous rulers, the people rejoices.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita

“An alien principle took charge when men began administering nature. When priestesses whose moon-based calendar foretold the cycles with minute precision gave way to priests in women’s robes who reckoned by the sun, & left each year awry with one fourth of a useless day.”
― Ursule Molinaro, The Autobiography of Cassandra, Princess & Prophetess of Troy

“The rulers of ill-governed countries have hands, mouths, feet, stomachs, ears, livers, kidneys! But there is something very vital that they do not have: The brain! If they had that, they could run their country well!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“When I was an authority on many subjects, I found myself a subject to the authorities.”
― Aegelis, Specks of Shadows, Flecks of Light

“Ashoka's political and moral philosophy, as he expressed it in his imperial inscriptions, initiated a tradition of religious tolerance, non-violent debate and a commitment to the idea of happiness which has animated Indian political philosophy ever since. But - and it's a big but - his benevolent empire scarcely outlived him. And that leaves us with the uncomfortable question of whether such high ideals can survive the realities of political power. Nevertheless, this was a ruler who really did change the way that his subjects and their successors thought.”
― Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects

“You say it like that's not the ambition for all rulers? Even the smallest man given the taste of power is bound to abuse it.”
― E. G. Sparks

“Revolution and selfishness are interrelated. Sometimes, it happens because the rulers are selfish; sometimes, the protesters are!”
― Md. Ziaul Haque

“বিপ্লব এবং স্বার্থপরতা পরস্পর সম্পর্কযুক্ত। কখনও কখনও, এটি ঘটে কারণ শাসকরা স্বার্থপর; কখনও কখনও, প্রতিবাদকারীরা!”
― Md. Ziaul Haque