Notes from Wikiquote
Attributed to Oxenstierna in H. L. Mencken, "The Russian Phantasmagoria" [Review of My Life, by Leon Trotsky] in The American Mercury, 20 (July 1930) pp. 381–83. An almost identical translation is attributed (without the Latin) to Pope Julius III in Alan C. Filley, The Compleat Manager: What Works When (Champaign, IL: Research Press Co, 1978) ch. 2, p. 9 | Do you know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled? [To a Portuguese monk who sympathised with the Pope's burden of office]