“And Adam ruled, for he was the King. Until the day his will to be King deserted him. Then he died, food for a stronger. And the strongest was always the King, not by strength alone, but King by cunning and luck and strength together. Among the rats.”
Source: King Rat
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James Clavell 55
American novelist 1921–1994Related quotes

Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects (London: J. R. Smith, 1857) p. 128. (1696)

“Such subjects are the very strength of kings,
And are thus above the law.”
De pareils serviteurs sont les forces des rois,
Et de pareils aussi sont au-dessus des lois.
Tulle, act V, scene iii
King Tullus forgives the hero, Horace, who has saved the state but killed his sister.
Horace (1639)

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

“In our minds, lad. In our minds. The traitor, the self; the self that cries I want to live; let the world burn so long as I can live! The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like the worm in the apple.”
Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Arren and Ged)