"It’s easy—very easy—to slay a ruler. But it’s very difficult to prevent a worse one from coming to his place."

Gene Wolfe Literature See all quotes by Gene Wolfe →

React to this quote

More by Gene Wolfe

“What little I have learned in the course of a long life, regarding the gods, I have tried to forget.”

“There are people who love birds so much they free them. There are others who love them so much they cage them.”

“Until we reach the end of time, we don’t know whether something’s been good or bad; we can only judge the intentions of those who acted.”

“No man has a home unless he is master of a place where he must please no one—a place where he can go and lock the door behind him.”

“The best way to be thought honest is to be honest.”

““You’re called a holy man,” she said. “I see you’re wholly deranged.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many."

— Eric Hoffer

Literature1902–1983

#power

"I was a vocal opponent of the George W. Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, a strategic blunder made worse by slapdash execution. As we have seen, this star-crossed action took our eye off …"

— Merrill McPeak

Military1936

#life

"Of the two classes of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves f…"

— William Hazlitt

Literature1778–1830

#truth

"Sean Penn never tries to show Harvey Milk as a hero, and never needs to. He shows him as an ordinary man, kind, funny, flawed, shrewd, idealistic, yearning for a better world. He shows what such an or…"

— Roger Ebert

Literature1942–2013

#time