Cardinal Richelieu quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Cardinal Richelieu

Cardinal Richelieu Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Cardinal Richelieu on Wise Famous Quotes.

Nothing is as dangerous for the state as those who would govern kingdoms with maxims found in books.

We may employ artifice to deceive a rival, anything against our enemies.

Nothing so upholds the laws as the punishment of persons whose rank is as great as their crime.

To know how to disguise is the knowledge of kings.

Wise judges are we of each other!

A single word has sometimes lost or won an empire ...

I have the consolation of leaving your kingdom in the highest degree of glory and of reputation.

To mislead a rival, deception is permissable; one may use all means against his enemies.

Carry on any enterprise as if all future success depended on it.

War is one of the scourges with which it has pleased God to afflict men.

Reason must be the universal rule and guide; all things must be done according to reason without allowing oneself to be swayed by emotion.

First, all means to conciliate; failing that, all means to crush.

Did you think I was immortal?

Never write a letter and never destroy one.

Who will be my equal?

Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.

To know how to dissemble is the knowledge of kings.
[Fr., Savoir dissimuler est le savoir des rois.]

To know how to dissimulate is the knowledge of kings.

If God forbade drinking, would He have made wine so good?

Friendship is the medicine for all misfortune; but ingratitude dries up the fountain of all goodness.

Not the least of the qualities that go into the making of a great ruler is the ability of letting others serve him.

I was excellent. Everybody loved me. I love myself, and I like bums.

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

Give me six lines written by the most honorable person alive, and I shall find enough in them to condemn them to the gallows.

I have never had any [enemies] other than those of the state.

I do not sleep to let others sleep in the shade of my waking.

Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles.