The Third Part, Chapter 43, p. 330
Leviathan (1651)
“As great as kings may be, they are what we are: they can err like other men.”
Pour grands que soient les rois, ils sont ce que nous sommes:
Ils peuvent se tromper comme les autres hommes.
Don Gomès, act I, scene iii.
Le Cid (1636)
“Those who knowingly allow the King to err deserve the same punishment as traitors.”
Los que dejan al rey errar a sabiendas, merecen pena como traidores.
Quoted in Diccionario ilustrado de frases célebres y citas literarias (1952), by Vicente Vega.
Makrina, in Emperor and Galilean (1873), Final lines.
Innkeeper's wife, singing a song of prophecies
A Child is Born (1942)
“In the hurry of business, the most able Judges are liable to err.”
Cotton v. Thurland (1793), 5 T. R. 409.
The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899), The Man With the Hoe (1898)
Context: O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings —
With those who shaped him to the thing he is —
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.
After the silence of the centuries?
A 293, B 350
Critique of Pure Reason (1781; 1787)
“It is an imprudence common to kings
To listen to too much advice and to err in their choice.”
C'est une imprudence assez commune aux rois
D'écouter trop d'avis et se tromper au choix.
Ptolomée, act IV, scene i.
La Mort de Pompée (The Death of Pompey) (1642)
“It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions never perplex us.”
The Man Who Laughs (1869)
