Prince

A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. Prince is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The female equivalent is a princess.

For the musician who used that moniker see: Prince (musician)

Quotes

Princes appear to me to be Fools Houses of Commons & Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools they seem to me to be something Else besides Human Life.
- William Blake, "Public Address", in The Note-book of William Blake, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, 1935. Also in The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake, edited by David V. Erdman, University of California Press, 2008 (p.580)

Let it not be understood that I have the slightest feeling against Henry of Prussia; it is the prince I have no use for. Personally, he may be a good fellow, and I am inclined to believe he is, and if he were in trouble and I had it in my power to help he would find in me a friend. The amputation of his title would relieve him of his royal affliction and elevate him to the dignity of a man.
- Eugene V. Debs, "Prince and Proletaire" in DEBS: His Life Writings and Speeches, 1908.

In your opinion, India means its few princes. To me it means its teeming millions on whom depends the existence of its princes and our own. Kings will always use their kingly weapons. To use force is bred in them. They want to command, but those who have to obey commands do not want guns: and these are in a majority throughout the world.
- Mohandas Gandhi, Chapter XVII, Hind Swaraj, 1909. Quoted in Mahatma Gandhi : The Essential Writings, edited by Judith M. Brown. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. (p.321)

A true prince is the artist of artists. […] The prince's material is the artist; his will is his chisel: he inspires, employs and directs the artist, because only he sees the whole picture from the correct perspective, because only he is the one to execute the great idea through which through which the unity of power and idea is expressed completely in the present. The regent produces an infinitely diverse spectacle, where stage and ground floor, actor and audience are one, and he himself is poet, director and hero of the play at the same time.
- Novalis, "Faith and Love; or, the King and the Queen" (1798) in Novalis Schriften, Volume 2 (1907), p. 162

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 682-86.

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times; and which have much veneration, but no rest.
- Francis Bacon, Essays, Of Empire.

Fallitur egregio quisquis sub principe credet
Servitutem. Nunquam libertas gratior extat
Quam sub rege pio.
- That man is deceived who thinks it slavery to live under an excellent prince. Never does liberty appear in a more gracious form than under a pious king.
- Claudianus, De Laudibus Stilichonis, III. 113.

A prince without letters is a Pilot without eyes. All his government is groping.
- Ben Jonson, Discoveries, Illiteratus, Princeps.

They say Princes learn no art truly, but the art of horsemanship. The reason is, the brave beast is no flatterer. He will throw a Prince as soon as his groom.
- Ben Jonson, Discoveries, Illiteratus, Princeps.

Quotes reported in James William Norton-Kyshe's The Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 224-226. Text online.

The King of England is one of those princes who hath an Imperial Crown; what is that? It is not to do what he will; no, but it is that he shall not be punished in his own person if he doth that which in itself is unlawful.
- Lord Bridgman, C.B., Case of Hugh Peters (1660), 5 How. St. Tr. 1144.