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Quotes About Courtiers

offend the Church was unwise, to mock old courtiers and women imprudent, to insult Catherine foolish and to outrage the Guards simply insane – to do all of these was suicidal. Frederick
~ Simon Sebag Montefiore
Are all Dumnonian warriors so ill-mannered? she asked the table at large in an acid voice. You want warriors to be courtiers? Celwin retorted brusquely. You'd send your precious poets to kill the Franks? And I don't mean by reciting their verses at them, though come to think of it that might be quite effective. He leered at the Queen and the three poets shuddered.
~ Bernard Cornwell
Leibniz used to discourse to Queen Sophia Charlotte of Prussia concerning the infinitely little, and how she would reply that on that subject she needed no instruction—the behaviour of courtiers had made her thoroughly familiar with it.
~ Bertrand Russell
This view was prevalent in Japan in the sixth century A.D., when Buddhism first reached that country. The Government, being in doubt as to the truth of the new religion, ordered one of the courtiers to adopt it experimentally; if he prospered more than the others, the religion was to be adopted universally. This is the method (with modifications to suit modern times) which the pragmatists advocate in regard to all religious controversies.
~ Bertrand Russell
Some say the favor of the Grand Steward is double-edged. They are wrong. It is all edge, and everybody knows it, and still all the courtiers spend their every waking moment clutching at it and bleeding.
~ Frances Hardinge
Courtiers of all ages feel one great need: to speak in such a way that they do not say anything.
~ Stendhal
O rei está rodeado de pessoas cujo único pensamento é divertir o rei, e evitar que ele pense em si mesmo. Porque ele será infeliz, embora rei, se pensar em si mesmo.
~ Blaise Pascal
The royalists paroled from the Channel Islands who chose Virginia, Philip Ludwell and Francis Lovelace among them, became Sir William Berkeley's courtiers. They never lost the habit, so appropriate to exiles, of pledging loyalty to the king but looking out for themselves.
~ Stephen Saunders Webb
I sifted us in about a half mile from the castle proper, partially hidden behind a frozen and sometimes horrifically animated hedge that is part of a shoulder-high, statue-studded labyrinth; the better to assess our surroundings as I have no idea how many courtiers she might have in attendance or whether she'll have posted guards.
~ Karen Marie Moning
Better to suffer the loneliness of the cold throne room than endure the isolation to be found within the crowds of facile courtiers.
~ Stuart Hill
The finest chroniclers of the great and the near-great have often been courtiers - the Duc de Saint-Simon, for instance, or Lady Murasaki.
~ Robert Gottlieb
Courtiers milled between the stone supports, a riot of colorful silk skirts and gold-trimmed coats. Full court wigs of powdered white sparkled with the addition of the ground stone the nobles used to imitate the silver luster of elven hair.
~ Kathryne Kennedy
With a flourish of his scepter, Mor'ded filled the long great room with sparkling white fire, the flames harmlessly bouncing off the wigs of the men and the silk skirts of the ladies. The courtiers laughed and wove their bodies through the magic, and Dominic watched them with hooded eyes until his father grew tired of amusing his playthings. When
~ Kathryne Kennedy
But it was this very politeness that finally first began to grate upon my nerves, and hen to cause despair to rise up within my throat and threaten to choke me. For, no matter how smooth and correct the words issuing from the courtiers' mouths were, they couldn't quite hide the scorn or laughter in their eyes. And so, on the night of my sixteenth birthday, I saw myself as they saw me for the very first time.
~ Cameron Dokey
Rich, famous, insider journalists do not want to subvert the status quo that so lavishly rewards them. Like all courtiers, they are eager to defend the system that vests them with their privileges and contemptuous of anyone who challenges that system.
~ Glenn Greenwald
Do you suppose, daughters, that He is alone when He comes to us? Do you not see that His most holy Son says: "Who art in the Heavens"? Surely such a King would not be abandoned by His courtiers. They stay with Him and pray to Him on our behalf and for our welfare, for they are full of charity.
~ Teresa of Avila
Some courtiers to wearie out time woulde tell vs further tales of Cornelius Agrippa, and how when sir Thomas Moore our countrieman was there, hee shewed him the whole destruction of Troy in a dreame.
~ Thomas Nashe
One of the great advantages of the American Revolution has been, that it led to a discovery of the principles, and laid open the imposition, of governments. All the revolutions till then had been worked within the atmosphere of a court, and never on the grand floor of a nation. The parties were always of the class of courtiers; and whatever was their rage for reformation, they carefully preserved the fraud of the profession.
~ Thomas Paine
The framework within which she imagined the world of the English Renaissance, also typical of her day, was limited to monarchs, courtiers and writers.
~ James Shapiro
How many times now have I managed to read the Big Shot's mind better than all the courtiers? Who knows, I may soon be suspected of witchcraft or of having a secret hot-line to the palace! For it does not stand to reason that from my hermit's hut in the forest I should divine the thoughts of the Emperor better than the mesmerized toadies in daily attendance.
~ Chinua Achebe
Washington has become our Versailles. We are ruled, entertained, and informed by courtiers -- and the media has evolved into a class of courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are mostly courtiers. Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception.
~ Chris Hedges
Every spendthrift passion has its attendant courtiers.
~ lessing doris vi
The king's companions are prepared to march. So scented, the courtiers, so urbane: the rustle of silk, the soundless tread of padded shoes. But slaughter is their trade. Like butchers in the shambles, it is what they were reared for. Peace, to them, is just the interval between wars.
~ Hilary Mantel
Old courtiers have resigned, rather than serve Anne; the new comptroller of the household is Sir William Paulet
~ Hilary Mantel