Quotes on Rulers

Now bring what we have into common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different tribe, now since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly, to the end that they may become partakers of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.

The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.

The enlightened ruler is heedful, and the good general full of caution.

The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike...Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish.

The new ruler must determine all the injuries that he will need to inflict. He must inflict them once and for all.

...but let it suffice us to know that it became God, who is the supreme Ruler, Governor and Judge of all that sin should be punished with death in the sinner or his surety; and therefore if God would bring many sons to glory, the Captain of their salvation must undergo sufferings and death, to make satisfaction for them.

Those (who) seek to establish systems of Government based on the regimentation of all Human Beings by a handful of individual rulers...call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

The aim of every political Constitution, is or ought to be first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.

The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Fate! There is no fate. Between the thought and the success God is the only agent. Fate is not the ruler, but the servant of Providence.

All becomes easy when we follow the current of opinion; it is the ruler of the world.

Therefore, a prudent ruler ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist. If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.

An enlightened ruler doesnot worry about people not knowing him; he worriesabout not knowing people.

A prince... must learn from the fox and the lion... One must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves. Those who act simply as lions are stupid. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot, and must not, honour his word when it places him at a disadvantage and when the reasons for which he made his promise no longer exist.

Hence the saying: The enlightened ruler lays his plans well ahead; the good general cultivates his resources.

If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler's bidding.

The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people's identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.

It is impossible to imagine anything which better becomes a ruler than mercy.

Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone.

An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.