Quote

Luxury ruins republics; poverty, monarchies.

Reformist kings can save their dynasties now by helping their countries move smoothly into democracy, or they will end their years in exile like the Russian aristocrats of a century earlier.

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.

It's as if we live in a house which has a vast treasury in one of its rooms. Only we've forgotten about it. So, instead of living a life of royalty, we go about in poverty.

The political power of the Country must fall eventually into the hands of certain great families as it always has done in other republics.

In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption.

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

The monarchy is a labor intensive industry.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.