If a king is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic.

The king shall lose no time when the opportunity waited for arrives.

It is better to be without a king than to have a bad one.

In place of the King's arbitrary despotism they proposed, not the withering anarchy of feudal separatism, but a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.

Here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it.

I did not usurp the crown. I picked it up from the gutter; the people placed it on my head. I was king of the people as the Bourbons are kings of the nobles.