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Home  »  Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men  »  Rudolf I.

S.A. Bent, comp. Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men. 1887.

Rudolf I.

  • [Rudolf of Hapsburg; founder of the House of Austria; born in Hapsburg, in what is now the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland, 1218; succeeded his father in the hereditary possessions of the family, 1240; elected Holy Roman Emperor, 1273; reformed the government and restrained the nobles; died 1291.]
  • Rome is like the lion’s den in the fable: one may see the footsteps of many who have gone there, but of none who have come back.

  • To the archbishop who kissed the emperor’s bride (his second wife, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy) as she was alighting from her carriage, Rudolf said, with a profane pun, “Kiss your Agnus Dei, but not my Agnes” (Küsse lieber deine Agnus Dei als meine Agnes).
  • At his coronation he seized a crucifix for want of a sceptre, saying, “The symbol of the world’s redemption is as good as a sceptre” (Das Zeichen der Welterlösung ist so gut als ein Scepter).
  • When his attendants would have kept some peasants from approaching him, the emperor rebuked them, saying, “I was not made king to be shut up from mankind.”