I am handier with a book than with a scepter; I'd liever be a man than a puppet, and a puppet I am--a figurehead on the prow of the ship, but I do not guide it.

Who care for me save those who have their ends to gain?
None, save the archbishop, who yet dreams of making a king of me.

And these are not my people who surround me; when I die, small care.

I shall have left in the passing scarce a finger mark in the dust of time." "Ah, Sire, if only you would be cold, unfriendly, avaricious.

Be stone and rule with a rod of iron.