There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.

Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects.

Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.

To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.

If there were two princes in Christendom who had good will and courage, it would be very easy to reconcile the religious difficulties; there is only one Jesus Christ and one faith, and all the rest is a dispute over trifles.

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

Kings were wont to honour philosophers, but if I had such I would honour them as angels that should have such piety in them that they would not seek where they are the second to be the first, and where the third to be the second and so forth.