Reign Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old reign quotes, reign sayings, and reign proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

It is something to hold the scepter with a firm hand. Ovid
No one would have doubted his ability to reign had he never been emperor. Tacitus
It would not be difficult to be a better ruler than I was: for I admit that I ruled badly; and even if I was fortunate enough to satisfy my subjects, I was not fortunate enough to satisfy myself. Christina (Queen of Sweden)
Son—they say there isn't any royalty in this country, but do you want me to tell you how to be king of the United States of America? Just fall through the hole in a privy and come out smelling like a rose. Kurt Vonnegut
God is the only being who, in order to reign, doesn't even need to exist. Charles Baudelaire
Magistrates rule by an established rotation; kings reign for life. Aristotle
The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it. Edwin H. Land
And whether consciously or not, you must be in many a heart enthroned: queens you must always be: queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless scepter of womanhood. John Ruskin
Men in great place are thrice servants; servants of the sovereign state, servants of fame, and servants of business; so as they have no freedom, neither in their persons, nor in their actions, nor in their times. It is a strange desire to seek power and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. John Locke
Great is the hand that holds dominion over man by a scribbled name. Dylan Thomas
I am a queen because I know how to govern myself. Lailah Gifty Akita
Even when she's dethroned by hardship, she still wears the sun as a crown. Curtis Tyrone Jones
Every reign must submit to a greater reign. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
As for my own part I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom. Elizabeth I
No one provokes me with impunity. Mary Queen of Scots
Not all the water in the rough rude sea / Can wash the balm from an anointed King; William Shakespeare
Your part can be the king, but unless people are treating you like royalty, you ain't no king, man. Jeff Bridges
Indeed, the existence of class, of social hierarchy, is as old as man himself. It prevails in the jungle where strength determines hierarchy; among men, it has also been savagely the same, whereby rulers vested with power through personal combat, or through lineal heritage as in the case of royalty, ravage their subjects. F. Sionil Jose
There are always signs that a reign is ending, and they are usually spotted not in the king himself but in his court. In the inner circle, latent jealousies between advisers spill into open conflict, as they angrily debate who is to blame for the calamity, chewing over each other's past errors and pointing the finger at old and nascent enemies. Hannah Rosin
And when a woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment. George Eliot
Power always becomes consolidated back into the hands of very few people... whether they be an economic aristocracy, a royalty, a monarchy which is the most concentrated form of oligarchy where it depends on one King who is ordained supposedly by God to rule. Immortal Technique
These, then, are the four kinds of royalty. First the monarchy of the heroic ages; this was exercised over voluntary subjects, but limited to certain functions; the king was a general and a judge, and had the control of religion The second is that of the barbarians, which is a hereditary despotic government in accordance with law. A third is the power of the so-called Aesynmete or Dictator; this is an elective tyranny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is in fact a generalship, hereditary and perpetual. Aristotle
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must. William Shakespeare
You can give a man a crown to wear but it does not make him king. Maria Koszler