Best Divine Right Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“It was the general opinion of ancient nations, that the divinity alone was adequate to the important office of giving laws to men... and modern nations, in the consecrations of kings, and in several superstitious chimeras of divine rights in princes and nobles, are nearly unanimous in preserving remnants of it... Is the jealousy of power, and the envy of superiority, so strong in all men, that no considerations of public or private utility are sufficient to engage their submission to rules for their own happiness? Or is the disposition to imposture so prevalent in men of experience, that their private views of ambition and avarice can be accomplished only by artifice? — … There is nothing in which mankind have been more unanimous; yet nothing can be inferred from it more than this, that the multitude have always been credulous, and the few artful. The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature: and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had any interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the inspiration of heaven, any more than those at work upon ships or houses, or labouring in merchandize or agriculture: it will for ever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. As Copley painted Chatham, West, Wolf, and Trumbull, Warren and Montgomery; as Dwight, Barlow, Trumbull, and Humphries composed their verse, and Belknap and Ramzay history; as Godfrey invented his quadrant, and Rittenhouse his planetarium; as Boylston practised inoculation, and Franklin electricity; as Paine exposed the mistakes of Raynal, and Jefferson those of Buffon, so unphilosophically borrowed from the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Américains those despicable dreams of de Pauw — neither the people, nor their conventions, committees, or sub-committees, considered legislation in any other light than ordinary arts and sciences, only as of more importance. Called without expectation, and compelled without previous inclination, though undoubtedly at the best period of time both for England and America, to erect suddenly new systems of laws for their future government, they adopted the method of a wise architect, in erecting a new palace for the residence of his sovereign. They determined to consult Vitruvius, Palladio, and all other writers of reputation in the art; to examine the most celebrated buildings, whether they remain entire or in ruins; compare these with the principles of writers; and enquire how far both the theories and models were founded in nature, or created by fancy: and, when this should be done, as far as their circumstances would allow, to adopt the advantages, and reject the inconveniences, of all. Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. [Preface to 'A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States of America', 1787]”

Source: A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America: Akashic U.S. Presidents Series

“And the priests looked down into the pit of injustice and they turned their faces away and said, 'Our kingdom is not as the kingdom of this world. Our life on earth is but a pilgrimage. The soul lives on humility and patience,' at the same time screwing the poor from their last centime. They settled down among their treasures and ate and drank with princes and to the starving they said, 'Suffer. Suffer as he suffered on the cross for it is the will of God.' And anyone believes what they hear over and over again, so the poor instead of bread made do with a picture of the bleeding, scourged, and nailed-up Christ and prayed to that image of their helplessness. And the priests said, 'Raise your hands to heaven and bend your knees and bear your suffering without complaint. Pray for those that torture you, for prayer and blessing are the only stairways which you can climb to paradise.' And so they chained down the poor in their ignorance so that they wouldn't stand up and fight their bosses who ruled in the name of the lie of divine right.”

God Religion Suffering Heaven Christ Class Poverty Power Ignorance Injustice Hypocrisy Manipulation Divine Right The Poor The Rich

Book:The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

Source: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade

“Here commences a new dominion acquired with a title by divine right. Ships are sent with the first opportunity; the natives driven out or destroyed; their princes tortured to discover their gold; a free license given to all acts of inhumanity and lust, the earth reeking with the blood of its inhabitants: and this execrable crew of butchers, employed in so pious an expedition, is a modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people!”

Blood Murder Killing Conversion Genocide Convert Religious Violence Divine Right Divine Command Theory Horrors Of Religion

Book:Gulliver’s Travels

Source: Gulliver’s Travels

“It is your divine right and your spiritual duty to protect your energy field from unwanted influences. In the wise words of the Mahatma, do not allow anyone to walk through your mind with their dirty feet.”

Divine Right Mahatma Gandhi Psychic Vampires Protect Your Energy Spiritual Protection Energy Thieves Energy Protection Protect Your Mind Psychic Protection Spiritual Duty

Author:Anthon St. Maarten

“Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beasts, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise or a sacrilegious abuse of an authority by divine right.”

Men Doe Animal Divine Exercise Creatures Authority Abuse Beast Dominion Divine Right Sacrilegious

Author:C. S. Lewis

“The whole world is run on bluff. No race, no nation, no man has any divine right to take advantage of others. Why allow the other fellow to bluff you?”

Men World Whole Running Culture Nations Justice Race Divine Diversity Advantage Fellows Social Justice Whole World Bluffs Divine Right

Book:Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

Source: Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

“Nothing that happened before this moment has any power over you whatsoever, except to the extent to which you carry it into this moment. Dwell in the present with full forgiveness of yourself and others, and your life will be lifted to divine right order...perfection, prosperity and peace.”

Moments Order Happened Divine Perfection Prosperity Over You Moments In Time Living In The Past Divine Right

Author:Marianne Williamson

“The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist. The time is past when we can be content with our social fabric merely because it is "ordained by divine right," or by the majesty of the law.”

Mind Past Law Social Divine Institutions Average Organized Expenses Fabric Proven Majesty Grasping Divine Right Average Minds

Book:Anarchism: Top Crime Collections

Source: Anarchism: Top Crime Collections

“Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary consequence, with moral symbols, sacred emblems, or legal formulae which are widely believed and deeply internalized. These central conceptions may refer to a god or gods, the 'votes of the majority,' the 'will of the people,' the 'aristocracy of talents or wealth,' to the 'divine right of kings' or to the alleged extraordinary endowment of the person of the ruler himself.”

“Conservatives or better, pro-corporate apologists hijacked the vocabulary of Jeffersonian liberalism and turned words like "progress," "opportunity," and "individualism" into tools for making the plunder of America sound like divine right. This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove the reputed brain of George W. Bush as the seminal age of inspiration for politics and governance of America today.”

“Both church and state claiming to be of divine origin have assumed divine right of man over woman; while church and state have thought for man, man has assumed the right to think for woman.”

Thinking Men States Religion Church Divine Church And State Divine Right

Book:Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages: with Reminiscences of Matriarchate

Source: Woman, Church and State: A Historical Account of the Status of Woman Through the Christian Ages: with Reminiscences of Matriarchate

“Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings.”

“The actor doesn't merely command the stage, he seems to own it by divine right.”

Seems Actors Stage Divine Command Divine Right

Author:Frank Rich

“The people "have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge- I mean of the character and conduct of their rulers."”

People Kind Mean Character Divine Presidential Rulers Founding Our Founding Fathers Us Founding Fathers Envied Divine Right Us Independence Day

Author:John Adams

“Divine right went out with the American Revolution and doesn't belong to the White House aides. What meat do they eat that makes them grow so great?”

House Grows White Divine Revolution Meat White House American Revolution Divine Right

Author:Sam Ervin

“We have had so many years of prosperity, we have passed through so many difficulties and dangers without the loss of liberty - that we begin to think that we hold it by divine right from heaven itself ... It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.”

Thinking Years Heaven Loss Liberty Danger Divine Difficulty Harder Prosperity Preserves Divine Right

Author:John C. Calhoun

“There is no separation in Divine Mind, therefore, I cannot be separated from the love and companionship which are mine by divine right.”

Mind Mines Divine Separation Companionship Divine Right

Book:The Complete Game of Life and How to Play It: The Classic Text with Commentary, Study Questions, Action Items, and Much Mor

Source: The Complete Game of Life and How to Play It: The Classic Text with Commentary, Study Questions, Action Items, and Much Mor

“The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition - the divine right of kings. At issue was the fundamental question of whether men's rights were God-given or whether these rights were to be dispensed by governments to their subjects. This document proclaimed that all men have certain inalienable rights. In other words, these rights came from God.”

“We need some remedial training on how to live as subjects in a kingdom. We may be justified in rejecting the divine right of kings to rule but we cannot be justified if we reject the rule of our divine king.”

Ifs Needs May Subjects Divine Kings Training Kingdoms Rejects Justified Rejecting Divine Right Divine Right Of Kings

Author:Joe Carter

“Coronation: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown skyhigh with a dynamite bomb.”

Divine Investing Visible Bombs Sovereign Ceremony Dynamite Divine Right Coronation

Book:The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

Source: The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World

“Till society is very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on being obeyed because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavor to settle that power on a divine right which will not bear the investigation of reason.”

Stills Reason Parent Divine Bears Settling Endeavor Investigation Divine Right

Author:Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

“America was the first country in history to be founded on, people have rights. Not the divine right of kings, not the emperor's a god, or idolized, or we have to do what the dear leader says. And, expressly, that it's a system of equal rights, and then governments are instituted to secure those rights.”

People Firsts Country Government America Leader Rights Divine Kings Equal Dear Secure Equal Rights Emperor Divine Right Idolized Divine Right Of Kings

Author:Charles Koch

“Empires are doomed. They become more diffuse, more broke, demagogues rule, and so I was just pointing out some similarities between past empires and what's going on right now. They all have had to apply more and more harsh rhetoric of superiority and divine right to justify the building of hegemony.”

Past Building Divine Right Now Broke Empires Justify Rhetoric Doomed Harsh Superiority Pointing Similarity Hegemony Divine Right

Author:Dar Williams

“Britain has no divine right to be one of the richest countries in the world.”

World Country Divine Britain Divine Right

Author:George Osborne

“The divine right of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without danger.”

May Age Literature Danger Divine Kings Husband Enlightened Afterlife Vindication Divine Right Divine Right Of Kings

Author:Mary Wollstonecraft

“You have a divine right to abundance, and if you are anything less than a millionaire, you haven't had your fair share.”

Ifs Share Havens Divine Fairs Abundance Millionaire Fair Share Divine Right

Author:Stuart Wilde

“A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” Benjamin Franklin”

Knows Men Wells Has Beens Wisdom Given Nations Freedom Education Rights Ignorance Taught Tyranny Regions Prize Franklin Freedom Liberty Divine Right Tyranny Founding Fathers

Author:Benjamin Franklin

“Humans make the mistake of believing that it is their right to survive. Species die out on this planet all the time without anyone noticing. The planet will still be there, and we must lose this attitude of divine right, that something will save us.”

Believe Humans Stills Dies Loses Mistake Attitude Divine Planets Species Noticing Divine Right

Author:Sting

“High school is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship - nor, contrary to popular belief, an anarchic state. High school is a divine-right monarchy. And when the queen goes on vacation, things change.”

States School Funny Belief Democracy Divine Goes On High School Contrary Queens Vacation Dictatorship Senior Things Change Monarchy Contrary To Popular Belief Divine Right

Book:The John Green Collection

Source: The John Green Collection

“And liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people who have a right from the frame of their nature to knowledge, as their great Creator who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings and a desire to know. But besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible divine right to the most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers.”

People Knows Kind Mean Doe Character Desire Given Understanding Education Liberty Divine Creator Vain Rulers Envied Divine Right General Knowledge

Book:The Portable John Adams

Source: The Portable John Adams

“Beauty is a form of Genius--is higher, indeed, than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in the dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned. It has divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it.”

Source: The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays

“When a man and a woman have an overwhelming passion for each other, it seems to me, in spite of such obstacles dividing them as parents or husband, that they belong to each other in the name of Nature, and are lovers by Divine right, in spite of human convention or the laws.”

Men Love Humans Seems Law Passion Names Parent Divine Lovers Husband Obstacles Spite Overwhelming Conventions Dividing Divine Right

Author:Nicolas Chamfort

“They [the founders] proclaimed to all the world the revolutionary doctrine of the divine rights of the common man. That doctrine has ever since been the heart of the American faith.”

Men World Heart America Common Rights Divine Doctrine Civil Rights Revolutionary Nationalism Founders Common Man Divine Right

Book:Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1954

“The sceptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.”

“Management has no divine rights.”

Struggle Rights Divine Management Divine Right

Author:Walter Reuther

“All that is mine by Divine Right is now released and reaches me in great avalanches of abundance, under grace in miraculous ways.”

Way Grace Mines Divine Abundance Miraculous Avalanches Divine Right Abundance And Prosperity

Book:Your Word is Your Wand: The Secret Edition - Open Your Heart to the Real Power and Magic of Living Faith and Let the Heaven Be in You, Go Deep Inside Yourself and Back, Feel the Crazy and Divine Love and Live for Your Dreams

Source: Your Word is Your Wand: The Secret Edition - Open Your Heart to the Real Power and Magic of Living Faith and Let the Heaven Be in You, Go Deep Inside Yourself and Back, Feel the Crazy and Divine Love and Live for Your Dreams

“Infinite Spirit, open the way for my great abundance. I am an irresistible magnet for all that belongs to me by Divine Right.”

Way Spirit Divine Infinite Abundance Irresistible Magnet Divine Right

Book:Your Word is Your Wand: The Secret Edition - Open Your Heart to the Real Power and Magic of Living Faith and Let the Heaven Be in You, Go Deep Inside Yourself and Back, Feel the Crazy and Divine Love and Live for Your Dreams

Source: Your Word is Your Wand: The Secret Edition - Open Your Heart to the Real Power and Magic of Living Faith and Let the Heaven Be in You, Go Deep Inside Yourself and Back, Feel the Crazy and Divine Love and Live for Your Dreams

“I accept perfect health as the natural state of my being. I now consciously release any mental patterns within me that could express as dis-ease in any way. Perfect health is my Divine right, and I claim it now.”

Way States Natural Perfect Accepting Divine Claims Patterns Release Ease Affirmation Divine Right

Author:Louise Hay

“When I was very young, biology, the diversity of life, was one of my main interests. I know there's this image people have that I'm this spoiled, cocky punk of an actor. Honestly, that's not who I am. I really care that so many species have been wiped out, like genocide of entire races. I believe in the divine right of all species to survive on this planet. So I decided I want to be active as an environmentalist. I learned. I asked experts. I got active.”