Shakespeare.    

	Ah! vainest of all things
	Is the gratitude of kings.

Longfellow.    

Samuel Johnson.    

Shakespeare.    

Tennyson.    

Scott.    

Favart.    

Attributed to Louis XIV. of France.    

Thiers.    

Shakespeare.    

	As yourselves your empires fall,
	And every kingdom hath a grave.

William Habington.    

	What is a king? a man condemn’d to bear
	The public burthen of the nation’s care.

Prior.    

Carlyle.    

	Kings are like stars—they rise and set, they have
	The worship of the world, but no repose.

Shelley.    

	There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,
	That treason can but peep to what it would.

Shakespeare.    

Corneille.    

Seneca.    

Junius.    

	The rule
	Of the many is not well. One must be chief
	In war and one the king.

Homer.    

	A man’s a man,
	But when you see a king, you see the work
	Of many thousand men.

George Eliot.    

Ben Jonson.    

	God save our gracious king!
	Long live our noble king!
	God save the king!

Henry Carey.    

	Yet looks he like a king; behold, his eye,
	As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth
	Controlling majesty.

Shakespeare.    

	The first king was a successful soldier;
	He who serves well his country has no need of ancestors.

Voltaire.    

	A substitute shines brightly as a king
	Until a king be by, and then his state
	Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
	Into the main of waters.

Shakespeare.    

	A crown! what is it?
	It is to bear the miseries of a people!
	To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
	And sink beneath a load of splendid care!

Hannah More.    

	Here lies our sovereign lord, the king,
	Whose word no man relies on,
	Who never said a foolish thing,
	And never did a wise one.

Said by a courtier of Charles II.    

	Princes have but their titles for their glories,
	An outward honor for an inward toil;
	And, for unfelt imaginations,
	They often feel a world of restless cares.

Shakespeare.    

	God gives not kings the stile of gods in vaine,
	For on his throne his sceptre do they sway;
	And as their subjects ought them to obey,
	So kings should feare and serve their God againe.

King James.    

	Let us sit upon the ground
	And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
	How some have been depos’d, some slain in war,
	Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d,
	Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d,
	All murder’d.

Shakespeare.    

	The king-becoming graces,
	As justice, verity, temperance, stableness,
	Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
	Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
	I have no relish of them.

Shakespeare.    

	A crown,
	Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns,
	Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights
	To him who wears the regal diadem.

Milton.    

	Princes that would their people should do well
	Must at themselves begin, as at the head;
	For men, by their example, pattern out
	Their imitations, and regard of laws:
	A virtuous court a world to virtue draws.

Ben Jonson.    

	O, how wretched
	Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favors!
	There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
	That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
	More pangs and fears than wars and women have;
	And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
	Never to hope again.

Shakespeare.    

	O wretched state of kings! doleful fate!
	Greatness misnamed, in misery only great!
	Could men but know the endless woe it brings,
	The wise would die before they would be kings.
	Think what a king must do! It tasks the best
	To rule the little world within his breast,
	Yet must he rule it, and the world beside,
	Or king is none, undone by power and pride.
	Think what a king must be! What burdens bear
	From birth to death! His life is one long care.
	It wears away in tasks that never end.
	He has ten thousand foes, but not one friend.

R. H. Stoddard.