Ruling Quotes

“And then what are your plans?”
Annwyl frowned. “My plans?”
“Yes. Your plans. You take your brother’s head, your troops are waiting. What is the next thing that you do?”
Annwyl just stared at him. He realized in that instant that the girl had no plans. None. No grand schemes of controlling the world. No plots to destroy any other empires. Not even the plan to have a celebratory dinner.
“Annwyl, you’ll be queen. You’ll have to do something.”
“But I don’t want to be queen.” Her body shook with panic, and he could hear it in her voice.
“You take his head, you’ll have little choice.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do as queen?”
“Well . .you could try ruling.”
“That sounds awfully complicated.”
― G.A. Aiken, Dragon Actually

“A ruler needs a good head and a true heart,” she famously told the king. “A cock is not essential.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fire & Blood

“Rule with the heart of a servant. Serve with the heart of a king.”
― Bill Johnson

“Haemon: No city is property of a single man.
Creon: But custom gives possession to the ruler.
Haemon: You'd rule a desert beautifully alone.”
― Sophocles, Antigone

“If we want truth and justice to rule our global village, there must be no hypocrisy. If there is no truth, then there will be no equality. No equality, no justice. No justice, no peace. No peace, no love. No love, only darkness.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“So by slow degrees the Britons were seduced by pleasant pastimes... until finally the gullible natives came to call their slavery "culture".”
― Publius Cornelius Tacitus

“Brother, you need never kneel to me again. We shall rule this realm together, you and I.”
― George R.R. Martin, Fire & Blood

“Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?”
― Douglas Adams

“Uncertainty is one of government recipes.”
― Toba Beta, Betelgeuse Incident: Insiden Bait Al-Jauza

“Our minds become slaves to those we see as having total power to control us and to cause pain to us. We are quick to give up control of ourselves to those who have the power to rule us as long as they also have the power to feed us. This is the fundamental construct of a feudal society.”
― Majid Kazmi, The First Dancer: How to be the first among equals and attract unlimited opportunities

“Threats are useless unless you have previously committed the level of violence your [sic] are threatening to use. Make examples of the enemies you cannot control so those that you can will be cowed. This is the foundation of ruling.”
– Extract from the personal memoirs of Dread Emperor Terribilis II”
― ErraticErrata, So You Want to Be a Villain?

“A queen should weave peace, not punish the innocent with loss of life for imagined insults.”
― Unknown, Beowulf

“And she's...lost.”
― Madeline C.C. Harper, The Return of Light

“I mean to give the smallfolk peace and food and justice. If that will not suffice to win their love, let Mushroom make a progress. Or perhaps we might send a dancing bear. Someone once told me that the commons love nothing half so much as dancing bears. You may call a halt to this feast tonight as well. Send the lords home to their own keeps and give the food to the hungry. Full bellies and dancing bears shall be my policy. - Aegon III”
― George R.R. Martin, The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones

“Gloriana, being royal isn’t about the wealth you possess, the crown on your head, the fine clothes you wear, or the castle you live in. It’s about the loyalty in your heart for your people, the knowledge in your head to aid them in times of trouble, and the depth of your soul to weather any storm.”

Kimbra Swain. Fairy Tales Of A Trailer Park Queen: Boxset (Kindle Locations 3327-3329). Crimson Sun Press.”
― Kimbra Swain, Bless Your Heart

“You are mine,” he hissed, “and through you, I will reign forever.”
― Nenia Campbell, Dragon Queen

“The major problem - one of the major problems, for there are several - on 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. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they're not.
And somewhere in the shadows behind them - who?
Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?”
― Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“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

“But since a Prince should know how to use the beast's nature wisely, he ought of beasts to choose both the lion and the fox; for the lion cannot guard himself from the toils, nor the fox from wolves. He must therefore be a fox to discern toils, and a lion to drive off wolves.”
― Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince

“Madoc makes a snorting sound, then turns to me. 'I am sure that Wren here wouldn't mind taking Lady Nore's castle and lands for herself.'

I shake my head at the absurdity of the statement.

He raises his brows. 'No? Still sitting at the table and waiting for permission to start eating?'

That's an uncomfortably accurate way of describing how I've lived my life.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“The scripture talks about man managing, ruling the earth, as the sole duty of man.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“I fear liars, and I fear tricksters, and worst I fear the bitter truth. And so I rule my country well. Because only fear rules men. Nothing else works. Nothing else lasts long enough.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin

“Az úr, aki fél megadni a választás lehetőségét az embereinek, nehogy azok úgy döntsenek, hogy elmennek, nem érdemli meg, hogy szolgálják.”
― Brent Weeks, The Blinding Knife

“The wisdom to be on the throne of one’s life must surpass the wisdom of the one being ruled, otherwise I will squander the whole of my life in the most appalling ways. By virtue of that reality, I would be wise to get out of the chair and invite God to have a seat.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough, An Intimate Collision: Encounters with Life and Jesus

“If you want to rule everything, rule the rulers!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Believe me, although it’s vexing to remember it, I am the King of my enemies as well as my friends. There’s a certain noblesse oblige, see. It’s a bad king who kills his subjects. I would rather see them humiliated than dead.”
― Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam

“Worst is the man who has all the good advice
And then because his nerve fails, fails to act
In accordance with it, as a leader should.
And equally to blame
Is anyone who puts the personal
Above the overall thing, puts friend
Or family first.”
― Seamus Heaney, The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone

“The elevation of mind to be derived from fear will never make a nation glorious.”
― Edmund Burke

“Traveller said, 'I expect the Tiste Edur discovered rather quickly the curse of occupation. It acts like a newly opened wound, infecting and poisoning both the oppressors and the oppressed. Both cultures become malformed, bitter with extremes. Hatred, fear, greed, betrayal, paranoia , and appalling indifference to suffering.'

'Yet the Malazans occupied Seven Cities'

'No, Samar Dev. The Malazans conquered Seven Cities. That is different. Kellanved understood that much. If one must grip hard in enemy territory, then that grip must be hidden, at the very cusp of local power. And so no more than a handful is being strictly controlled, everyone else, merchants and herders and farmers and tradefolk, everyone, is to be shown better circumstances, as quickly as possible. "Conquer as a rogue wave, rule in quiet ripples." The Emperor's own words.”
― Steven Erikson, Toll the Hounds

“Governments rule people.
Thoughts rule the world.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts