Quotes about ruling
A collection of quotes on the topic of rule, ruling, people, other.
Quotes about ruling
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Source: Rebuilding Russia: Reflections and Tentative Proposals
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer
“He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918) Emperor of All the Russias, Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland By the Grace of God
As quoted in [Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: From Alexander II to the abdication of Nicholas II, https://books.google.com/books?id=wGp4M2DzfMQC&pg=PA341, 1995, Princeton University Press, 0-691-02947-4, 341–]
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary
“There are 2 rules in life:
Number 1- Never quit
Number2- Never forget rule number 1.”
Duke Ellington (1899–1974) American jazz musician, composer and band leader
Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism
Part 3, Ch. 13, § 3. <br class="br">Source: On the subject the ideal subjects for a totalitarian authority. Source: The Origins of Totalitarianism, published in 1951. As quoted by Scroll Staff (December 04, 2017): Ideas in literature: Ten things Hannah Arendt said that are eerily relevant in today’s political times https://web.archive.org/web/20191001213756/https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times. In: Scroll.in. Archived from the original https://scroll.in/article/856549/ten-things-hannah-arendt-said-that-are-eerily-relevant-in-todays-political-times on October 1, 2019.
Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil
First speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president after being elected President, October 31. <br class="br">2010
“If you desire to rule and conquer, you don't just fold your hands when things go wrong, you act.”
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
"History of India" at Amazing World http://www.amworld.info/india-travel/history-of-india; it is not clear in the source cited that this is a quote of Babur — it might be a comment made about him. <br class="br">Disputed
Dilma Rousseff (1947) 36th President of Brazil
First speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/01/dilma-rousseff-wins-brazil-president after being elected President, October 31. <br class="br">2010
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
aur pahlu mein wah dair baqi hai
Hadiqah-i-Shuhadã by Mîrza Alî Jãn,, cited by Dr. Harsh Narain, "Rama-Janmabhumi Temple: Muslim Testimony", 1990, and quoted in Goel, S.R. Hindu Temples - What Happened to them.
Quotes from Muslim histories of early modern era
Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist
On her opposition to the construction of a skyscraper in Nairobi, Kenya, as quoted in the article Wangari Maathai:"You Strike The Woman ..." by Priscilla Sears in the quarterly In Context #28 (Spring 1991)
“Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words. We shall, however, when occasion demands, enter into discourse sparingly, avoiding such common topics as gladiators, horse-races, athletes; and the perpetual talk about food and drink. Above all avoid speaking of persons, either in the way of praise or blame, or comparison. If you can, win over the conversation of your company to what it should be by your own. But if you should find yourself cut off without escape among strangers and aliens, be silent. (164).
Sun Tzu (-543–-495 BC) ancient Chinese military general, strategist and philosopher from the Zhou Dynasty
Source: The Art of War, Chapter III · Strategic Attack
Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador
Variant translation: Slavery is the daughter of darkness; an ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction; ambition and intrigue take advantage of the credulity and inexperience of men who have no political, economic or civil knowledge. They mistake pure illusion for reality, license for freedom, treason for patriotism, vengeance for justice.
As translated by Frederick H. Fornoff in El Libertador : Writings Of Simon Bolivar (2003) edited by David Bushnell
The Angostura Address (1819)
Context: We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty.
Hannah Arendt book The Origins of Totalitarianism
Preface to the first edition, written in the summer of 1950.
The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)
Context: The totalitarian attempt at global conquest and total domination has been the destructive way out of all impasses. Its victory may coincide with the destruction of humanity; wherever it has ruled, it has begun to destroy the essence of man. Yet to turn our backs on the destructive forces of the century is of little avail.
The trouble is that our period has so strangely intertwined the good with the bad that without the imperialists' "expansion for expansion's sake," the world might never have become one; without the bourgeoisie's political device of "power for power's sake," the extent of human strength might never have been discovered; without the fictitious world of totalitarian movements, in which with unparalleled clarity the essential uncertainties of our time have been spelled out, we might have been driven to our doom without ever becoming aware of what has been happening.
And if it is true that in the final stages of totalitarianism an absolute evil appears (absolute because it can no longer be deduced from humanly comprehensible motives), it is also true that without it we might never have known the truly radical nature of Evil.
George Orwell book England Your England
Part I : England Your England, § IV
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) German social scientist, author, political theorist, and philosopher
Source: On Authority, see https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm
“Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher
Banksy pseudonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist, and painter
Source: Wall and Piece (2005)
Bruce Chatwin book The Songlines
Source: The Songlines
“If people would know how little brain is ruling the world, they would die of fear.”
Ivo Andrič (1892–1975) novelist, short story writer
Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician
Interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJHq2aN9tYE by Penny Daniels (1989)
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State
"The Next Steps With Iran" in The Washington Post (31 July 2006), p. A15 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/30/AR2006073000546.html <br class="br">2000s
“Behold a God more powerful than I who comes to rule over me.”
Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi.
Dante Alighieri book Vita Nuova
Source: La Vita Nuova (1293), Chapter I (tr. Barbara Reynolds); of love.
“When change threatens to rule, then the rules are changed.”
Michael Parenti (1933) American academic
5 MISCELLANY AND MEMORABILIA, Struggles in Academe: A Personal Account, p. 248
Dirty truths (1996), first edition
Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man
Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches, p. 75
Sourced quotes
Bobby Fischer (1943–2008) American chess prodigy, chess player, and chess writer
Radio Interview, June 27 1999 http://www.geocities.jp/bobbby_b/mp3/F_08_3.MP3 <br class="br">1990s
Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS
Our concern, our duty, is our people and our blood. We can be indifferent to everything else. I wish the S.S. to adopt this attitude towards the problem of all foreign, non-Germanic peoples, especially Russians....
The Posen speech to SS officers (6 October 1943)
1940s
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein (1887–1976) British Army officer, Commander of Allied forces at the Battle of El Alamein
Interview, 2 July, 1968; quoted in New York Times, 3 July, 1968, p. 6.
Texe Marrs (1944–2019) American writer
The text by Texe Marrs titled "All Hail the Jewish Master Race" was published before 2004 https://web.archive.org/web/20031217191553/http://texemarrs.com/112003/jewish_master_race.htm (allegedly 25 November 2003 https://web.archive.org/web/20031205052353/http://www.rense.com/general45/master.htm) and claimed "In his memoirs of his years in the White House, former President Jimmy Carter wrote that there could have been peace between the Arabs and the Israelis had it not been for the bigoted, Nazi-like racial views of Israeli's Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Begin, Carter recalled, believed the Jews were a Master Race, a holy people superior to Egyptians and Arabs." No source is provided regarding the Jimmy Carter claim. <br class="br">Misattributed to Menachem Begin. Attributed in page 208 of Oil Crisis by Colin John Campbell in 2005 https://books.google.ca/books?id=VaGCbpbzjRwC&pg=PA208
Michael Parenti (1933) American academic
"The 1% Pathology And The Myth of Capitalism" October 19, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKyX7GNHYkQ&t=218
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Russian composer, pianist, and conductor
Interviewed by David Ewen in The Etude, 1941; cited from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston, MA: Northeastern Universities Press, 1997) pp. 235-6
“I ask, on this bondless land
Who rules over man's destiny?”
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
Changsha (1925)
Context: Alone I stand in the autumn cold
On the tip of Orange Island,
Xiang flowing northward;
I see a thousand hills crimsoned through
By their serried woods deep-dyed,
And a hundred barges vying
Over crystal blue waters.
Eagles cleave the air,
Fish glide under the shallow water;
Under freezing skies a million creatures contend in freedom.
Brooding over this immensity,
I ask, on this bondless land
Who rules over man's destiny?
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
Context: A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then, again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revaluation of prominent historical figures.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Source: Review of Zest for Life by Johann Wöller, in Time and Tide (17 October 1936)
“we can't change the game but rules can be adjusted”
Josephs Quartzy (1999) Tanzanian actor
Source: Sweetest song I know
Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"
Source: The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82
“He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.”
Ludwig von Mises book Bureaucracy
Source: Bureaucracy
Italo Calvino book Invisible Cities
Page 44.
Source: Invisible Cities (1972)
Context: With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.
“Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.”
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) French composer
As quoted in Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought (1992) by John Paynter, p. 590
Unsourced variant: Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.
Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Theologician from Wales
Genesis 2:21.
Commentaries
Variant: Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.
Source: Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible
“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
“It’s a simple and generous rule of life that whatever you practice, you will improve at.”
Elizabeth Gilbert Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Source: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Foreword to the small catechismus, as quoted in the Preface, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (2000) by Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert, p. 19
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
Jedes Zeitalter wird, wenn es historischen Rang hat, von Aristokratien gestaltet.
Aristokratie = die Besten herrschen.
Niemals regieren Völker sich selbst. Diesen Wahnsinn hat der Liberalismus erfunden. Hinter seiner Volkssouveränität verstecken sich nur die gerissensten Schelme, die nicht erkannt sein wollen.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
“No one is able to rule unless he is also able to be ruled.”
nemo autem regere potest nisi qui et regi.
Seneca the Younger Moral Essays
De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 15, line 4
Compare with the following : No man ruleth safely but that he is willingly ruled.
From The Imitation of Christ, Liber I, cap. 20 (Of the Love of Solitude and Silence), line 2 : by Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471).
Moral Essays
Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) Austrian lawyer
General Theory of Law and State (1949), I. The Concept of Law, A. Law and Justice, a. Human Behavior as the Objects of Rules
Cesare Lombroso (1835–1909) Italian criminologist
Die Welt (1909); also in A Treasury of Jewish Quotations (1985) by Joseph L. Baron.
Babur (1483–1530) 1st Mughal Emperor
Muraqqa-i-Khusrawî (Tãrîkh-i-Awadh) by Shykh Azmat Alî Kãkorwî Nãmî , cited by Dr. Harsh Narain, "Rama-Janmabhumi Temple: Muslim Testimony", 1990, and quoted in Goel, S.R. Hindu Temples - What Happened to them.
According to Harsh Narain, the publication of the chapter "dealing with the Jihad led by Amir Ali Amethawi for recapture of Hanuman Garhi from the Bairagis" was suppressed "on the ground that its publication would not be opportune in view of the prevailing political situation". Dr. Kakorawi himself lamented that ‘suppression of any part of any old composition or compilation like this can create difficulties and misunderstandings for future historians and researchers’. Muraqqa-i-Khusrawî (Tãrîkh-i-Awadh) by Shykh Azmat Alî Kãkorwî Nãmî. Shykh Azamat Ali Kakorawi Nami (1811–1893), Muraqqa(h)-i Khusrawi also known as the Tarikh-i Av(w)adh cited by Harsh Narain The Ayodhya Temple Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources, 1993, New Delhi, Penman Publications. ISBN 8185504164 Quoted in Dr. Harsh Narain: Rama-Janmabhumi Temple Muslim Testimony Harsh Narain (Indian Express, February 26, 1990) and in Shourie, A., & Goel, S. R. (1990). Hindu temples: What happened to them.
Quotes from Muslim histories of early modern era
Ian Smith (1919–2007) Prime Minister of Rhodesia
Nigel Rees, "Sayings of the Century", Unwin paperbacks, 1984, p. 247.
Radio broadcast, March 20, 1976.
Peter Godwin, Comment in the Guardian(UK) Newspaper http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/25/comment.zimbabwe.
Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
“ A New Storm Against Imperialism https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-9/mswv9_80.htm” (1968)
Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation
Source: Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523), p. 91
Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality
From interview with Anshul Chaturvedi
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer
Variant translation: A loss of courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days...
Harvard University address (1978)
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Michael Moore declares these lines in his film Fahrenheit 9/11 as something "Orwell once wrote". They are nearly identical to a block of voiceover in the 1984 Richard Burton/John Hurt movie version of 1984 when Winston (Hurt) is silently reading Goldstein's book. All of the lines are excerpts from various parts of Goldstein's book in part 2, chapter 9 of the novel with some paraphrasing. Note that the fourth sentence begins with "This new version". In Moore's speech there is no antecedent for this phrase; consequently, the sentence makes no sense there. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SVrM2Ef81C7EUSTm4zsgjQk9mgMSeFUnlEvtleR2V1w/edit?usp=sharing http://metabunk.org/threads/debunked-war-is-not-meant-to-be-won-it-is-meant-to-be-continuous.1259/ <br class="br">Misattributed
“If you see a man dedicated to his stomach, crawling on the ground, you see a plant and not a man; or if you see a man bedazzled by the empty forms of the imagination, as by the wiles of Calypso, and through their alluring solicitations made a slave to his own senses, you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you see a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule of reason, him shall you hold in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and not of earth; if, finally, a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in human flesh.”
Si quem enim videris deditum ventri, humi serpentem hominem, frutex est, non homo, quem vides; si quem in fantasiae quasi Calipsus vanis praestigiis cecucientem et subscalpenti delinitum illecebra sensibus mancipatum, brutum est, non homo, quem vides. Si recta philosophum ratione omnia discernentem, hunc venereris; caeleste est animal, non terrenum. Si purum contemplatorem corporis nescium, in penetralia mentis relegatum, hic non terrenum, non caeleste animal: hic augustius est numen humana carne circumvestitum.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola book Oration on the Dignity of Man
8. 40-42; translation by A. Robert Caponigri
Oration on the Dignity of Man (1496)
W.B. Yeats book The Tower
I, st. 4 <br class="br">The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/
Emperor Gaozu of Han (-256–-195 BC) founding emperor of the Han Dynasty (256 BC - 195 BC)
Translated by Burton Watson
大風歌 Song of the Great Wind
Jürgen Habermas book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
Source: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, 1963/1991, p. 27
John Locke book Two Treatises of Government
Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. XIX, sec. 222
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Henri Fayol (1841–1925) Developer of Fayolism
Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Russell C. Swansburg (1996) Management and Leadership for Nurse Managers, p. 1
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
On National-Socialism, Bolshevism & Democracy (September 10, 1938) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-national-socialism-bolshevism-and-democracy <br class="br">1930s
Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible
The Satanic Bible (1969)
Adam Weishaupt (1748–1830) German philosopher and founder of the Order of Illuminati
"Greeting to the newly integrated illuminatos dirigentes", in Nachtrag von weitern Originalschriften vol. 2 (1787) p. 45.
Ruslana Koršunova (1987–2008) fashion model
"Model's Web rants pined for love" in Daily News (New York, 29 June 2009) http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/06/28/2008-06-28_models_web_rants_pined_for_love.html
“I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.”
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Conversation with Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases (11 November 1816), Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, v. 4, p. 133 http://books.google.com/books?id=945jAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA133. <br class="br">Context: I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them. It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still, and I was wise enough to yield to them rather than resist them obstinately and make the ship founder. Thus I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) French politician, mutualist philosopher, economist, and socialist
"The Authority Principle" in No Gods, No Masters : An Anthology of Anarchism (1980) Daniel Guérin, as translated by Paul Sharkey (1998), p. 90
Context: I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"The Prevention of Literature" (1946)
Context: Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia. A society becomes totalitarian when its structure becomes flagrantly artificial: that is, when its ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to power by force or fraud. Such a society, no matter how long it persists, can never afford to become either tolerant or intellectually stable. It can never permit either the truthful recording of facts or the emotional sincerity that literary creation demands. But to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy — or even two orthodoxies, as often happens — good writing stops. This was well illustrated by the Spanish civil war. To many English intellectuals the war was a deeply moving experience, but not an experience about which they could write sincerely. There were only two things that you were allowed to say, and both of them were palpable lies: as a result, the war produced acres of print but almost nothing worth reading.
“The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils.”
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"No, Not One," The Adelphi (October 1941), p. 7 http://books.google.com/books?id=hdwYAQAAIAAJ&q=%22The+choice+before+human+beings%22&pg=PA7#v=onepage- 8 http://books.google.com/books?id=hdwYAQAAIAAJ&q=%22is+not+as+a+rule+between+good+and+evil+but+between+two+evils%22&pg=PA8#v=onepage <br class="br">Context: The choice before human beings, is not, as a rule, between good and evil but between two evils. You can let the Nazis rule the world: that is evil; or you can overthrow them by war, which is also evil. There is no other choice before you, and whichever you choose you will not come out with clean hands.