A Quote by Alan Watts
There is a peculiar contradiction in trying to be a member of a republic while believing that the universe is a monarchy.
Related Quotes
People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.
How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy?
A lady asked Dr. Franklin Well Doctor what have we got a republic or a monarchy - "A republic," replied the Doctor, "if you can keep it."
Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Believing in evolution is believing in the unproved, while believing in Christ is believing in the proven.
Behold a republic standing erect while empires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their own armaments - a republic whose flag is loved while other flags are only feared.
In the Roman commonwealth, even on the conversion of the monarchy into a republic, the old was as far as possible retained.
The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.
What is called a republic, is not any particular form of government ... it is naturally opposed to the word monarchy, which means arbitrary power.
For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.
Few people have definitely articulated philosophies of their own. But almost everyone has his own peculiar sense of a certain total character in the universe, and of the inadequacy of fully to match it [to] the peculiar systems that he knows.
The rule of law is a republic. The rule of one person is a monarchy.
The Platonists and their Christian successors held the peculiar notion that the Earth was tainted and somehow nasty, while the heavens were perfect and divine. The fundamental idea that the Earth is a planet, that we are citizens of the Universe, was rejected and forgotten.
I maintain the importance of an absolute prohibition against torture, while acknowledging that even absolute prohibitions can sometimes be broken. If that is a contradiction, it is a contradiction that ethics has to embrace, or else it becomes like glass: hard, clear, but fatally inflexible.
Canadians should realise when they are well off under the Monarchy. For the vast majority of Canadians, being a Monarchy is probably the only form of government acceptable to them. I have always been for parliamentary democracy and I think the institution of Monarchy with the Queen heading it all has served Canada well.
When a monarchy gradually transforms itself into a republic, the executive power there preserves titles, honors, respect, and even money long after it has lost the reality of power. The English, having cut off the head of one of their kings and chased another off the throne, still go on their knees to address the successors of those princes. On the other hand, when a republic falls under one man's yoke, the ruler's demeanor remains simple, unaffected, and modest, as if he had not already been raised above everybody.
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