King Of Siam Quotes

Perhaps, she had dreamed, she would teach some future King, shaping his child mind for a new and better world.

He searched for words to poison the shaft of his disdain.

It came with a stirring of the conviction that was never to leave her: that human being, whatever his color or creed or sex, had certain inalienable rights which other human beings had no right to violate.

The kings of Siam are said to have ruined obnoxious countries by presenting them with white elephants that had to be maintained at vast expense. Receiving aid is not just like receiving an elephant but like making love to an elephant; there is no pleasure in it, you run the risk of being crushed and it takes years before you see the results. Aid is twice cursed: it curses him who gives and him who receives.

Perhaps nuns felt like this, she thought, when they passed within convent walls and left the glitter of the world behind. But their renunciation was of the will, while circumstances beyond her control had stripped her of the people who meant everything to her. And yet was it not possible that they had endured the same impoverishment, so that when the glory that was life had become husks they found it good to exchange those dead things for service and whatever vicarious happiness could be salvaged? Maybe selflessness was only selfishness on another level.

Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things— the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.

Our supposed leader was Miss Joyce, who had been working as a civil servant in the department since its foundation forty-five years earlier in 1921. She was sixty-three years old and, like my late adoptive mother Maude, was a compulsive smoker, favouring Chesterfield Regulars (Red), which she imported from the United States in boxes of one hundred at a time and stored in an elegantly carved wooden box on her desk with an illustration of the King of Siam on the lid. Although our office was not much given to personal memorabilia, she kept two posters pinned to the wall beside her in defence of her addiction. The first showed Rita Hayworth in a pinstriped blazer and white blouse, her voluminous red hair tumbling down around her shoulders, professing that ‘ALL MY FRIENDS KNOW THAT CHESTERFIELD IS MY BRAND’ while holding an unlit cigarette in her left hand and staring off into the distance, where Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin were presumably pleasuring themselves in anticipation of erotic adventures to come. The second, slightly peeling at the edges and with a noticeable lipstick stain on the subject’s face, portrayed Ronald Reagan seated behind a desk that was covered in cigarette boxes, a Chesterfield hanging jauntily from the Gipper’s mouth. ‘I’M SENDING CHESTERFIELDS TO ALL MY FRIENDS. THAT’S THE MERRIEST CHRISTMAS ANY SMOKER CAN HAVE – CHESTERFIELD MILDNESS PLUS NO UNPLEASANT AFTER-TASTE’ it said, and sure enough he appeared to be wrapping boxes in festive paper for the likes of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, who, I’m sure, were only thrilled to receive them

Was she insane?! She would lose her head before she was 20!

Prince Chulalongkorn lifted his chin proudly. "Siam, population six million, spreading across forty-nine bountiful provinces, from Burma in west to Cambodia in east. All presided over by King Maha Mongkut, Lord of Life, whose strength and power reach everywhere." At this, all the royal children smiled and nodded knowingly. Louis looked at the map, then at his mother. Unable to resist a joke, he said, "Not in my house they don't." Chulalongkorn turned to him haughtily. "Son of teacher is forgetting—I am son of king." The younger boy shrank back, embarrassed. "Son of teacher could care less.

The Life that I Ought to be Living is the One I Am The life that I ought to be living is the one I am. Thank you God. Thank you Sam. I am a poet, that I am, where bliss is not just hit and miss. Its rapture lies at the tip of my felt tipped pen. It lets me create my own scripture like the wisest of men. Thank you God, for taking me out of this traffic jam, and placing me high on the throne of Siam. I am a king because of this poetry thing, mug's game or not, how true it rings. Thank you Sam for making me who I am. And thank you God, for everything.

She was a woman, slight, almost frail in appearance; not someone who could fight with guns to free the slaves, as in the United States, but someone who could fight with knowledge in the corner of the world where she found herself.

She had become so much more accustomed to hard work and opposition than to adulation that the only emotion she had felt had been one of acute discomfort.

Change from despair to joy he made her extremely beautiful.

Shall I say of you that you worship the image of your God that you have in your mind, but not your God?

The nonchalance irritated her more because it was not assumed.

In one of his later volumes, Earth, book XXXV, Pliny tells the story of a goldsmith who brought an unusual dinner plate to the court of Emperor Tiberius. The plate was a stunner, made from a new metal, very light, shiny, almost as bright as silver. The goldsmith claimed he’d extracted it from plain clay, using a secret technique, the formula known only to himself and the gods. Tiberius, though, was a little concerned. The emperor was one of Rome’s great generals, a warmonger who conquered most of what is now Europe and amassed a fortune of gold and silver along the way. He was also a financial expert who knew the value of his treasure would seriously decline if people suddenly had access to a shiny new metal rarer than gold. “Therefore,” recounts Pliny, “instead of giving the goldsmith the regard expected, he ordered him to be beheaded.” This shiny new metal was aluminum, and that beheading marked its loss to the world for nearly two millennia. It next reappeared during the early 1800s but was still rare enough to be considered the most valuable metal in the world. Napoléon III himself threw a banquet for the king of Siam where the honored guests were given aluminum utensils, while the others had to make do with gold.

et cetera, et cetera, as the King of Siam would have put it.

The king of Siam once asked his wise men for a proverb that would be appropriate for any occasion. They suggested "This, too, shall pass". Well, in biochemistry an equally appropriate saying for all occasions is "Things are more complicated than they seem".

white el·e·phant   n. a possession that is useless or troublesome, esp. one that is expensive to maintain or difficult to dispose of.  from the story that the kings of Siam gave such animals as a gift to courtiers considered obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the great expense incurred in maintaining the animal.

Anna was convinced that the low level of literature and art in Siam was due to the fear that every talented person felt of being impounded into royal service if it became known that he had more than ordinary gifts.

Maybe selflessness was only selfishness on another level.

(T)he motive consecrates the deed.

Farewell, my beautiful Sunatda. You have been the light of the setting sun to me. The glory of your love has dispersed the dark clouds that overshadowed my life and the memory of your face will be bright before my fading eyes to the end.

At its head was King George in a general’s uniform astride a dark charger. He was flanked by the Kaiser on his right and the Duke of Connaught on his left. Both were dressed as field marshals, batons clasped firmly in their hands. Behind rode the Crown Prince of Romania and the Hereditary Prince of the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and the Duke of Aosta, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria and Prince Bovaradej of Siam, and dozens more besides. It was, wrote Lionel Cust, a veritable ‘babel of tongues and clashing hoofs’.

The King’s visit brought a great improvement to the province. To prepare for his reception, streets were improved, trees were cut, street lights were installed. If His Majesty had enough time to visit all parts of the country, Siam would soon be prosperous, because the viceroys and governors would get busy and improve the country for the royal visit.