philosopher king

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English

Alternative forms

Etymology

The concept comes from Plato's Republic (circa 375 BCE), which discusses the ideal rulers of a city state.

Noun

philosopher king (plural philosopher kings)

  1. A very wise ruler.
    • 1862, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, , →OCLC, book XI, page 6:
      He flies much about from place to place; now at Potsdam, now at Berlin, at Charlottenburg, Reinsberg; nothing loath to run whither business calls him, and appear in public: the gazetteer world, as we noticed, which has been hitherto a most mute world, breaks out here and there into a kind of husky jubilation over the great things he is daily doing, and rejoices in the prospect of having a Philosopher King; […]
    • 1871, Benjamin Jowett, transl., Republic‎, translation of Πολιτεία by Plato:
      […] what has been said about the State and the government is not a mere dream […] that is to say, when the true philosopher kings are born in a State, one or more of them, despising the honours of this present world which they deem mean and worthless, […]
    • 1919, John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace:
      But if the President was not the philosopher-king, what was he? After all he was a man who had spent much of his life at a University.
    • 1987, Stewart Flory, The Archaic Smile of Herodotus:
      This philosopher king contrasts sharply with the cruel tyrant, who plays a memorable role in other parts of the Histories.

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