Emperor Quotes

Christians aren't making a religious claim when they say Jesus rose from the grave. They're making a historical one; they're saying that this thing happened just as surely and really as it happened that Julius Caesar became emperor of Rome. It's the kind of claim that can be thought about and investigated; it can be judged, ~ Greg Gilbert

Perhaps everything you say is true and these are the death throes of the human race, but even if that was true, I would not lose faith. There must be hope, and I must fight for my Emperor against Chaos and it's servants.

That is insanity.

Wrong, it's being human. ~ Ben Counter

Padmé insists: "There's always a choice." Does Anakin hear the echo of her voice decades later, when he decides to save their son from the Emperor? I like to think so.

"YOU GET MANY OPPORTUNITIES TO KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN"

Here's Leia, speaking of Han's apparent desertion of the rebellion in A New Hope: "A man must follow his own path. No one can choose it for him." Here's Obi-Wan to Luke, again in A New Hope: "Then you must do what you think is right, of course." Here are Lucas's own words: "Life sends you down funny paths. And you get many opportunities to keep your eyes open." He was talking about his own life, but he might as well have been talking about Star Wars and the characters who populate it. ~ Cass R. Sunstein

I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels. ~ Amy Waldman

Day and night, their fail and crippled ships defy the tempest. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

And Kestrel was in a good position to gather information for Arin's spymaster, wasn't she? Beloved by the court. Daughter of the general. Close to the emperor. Promised to his son. Tensen would never tell Arin if she was his source.
It fit perfectly. Look at her now. The maid's uniform. That coat. Something hidden in her eyes. Oh, yes. Kestrel would make a fine spy.
And let's not forget that ruined dress Deliah had described, with the ripped seams and vomit and mucky hem.
Wouldn't it be like Kestrel, to risk herself?
For what? Herran?
Him?
Gods of madness and lies. Arin was insane.
He laughed out loud. ~ Marie Rutkoski

This book first arose out of a passage in [Jorge Luis] Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought - our thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography - breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopaedia' in which it is written that 'animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies'. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that. ~ Michel Foucault

Wonderful," he said. "Tell me. Which books in the Bible do you favor?"
"Oh, I favors 'em all," Pa said. "But I mostly like Hezekiel, Ahab, Trotter, and Pontiff the Emperor."
The Old Man frowned. "I don't recollect I have read those," he said. ~ James McBride

I felt that one of the major issues in the third film is that Luke is finally on his own and has to fight Vader and the Emperor by himself. If you get a sense that Yoda or Ben is there to help him or to somehow influence him, it diminishes the power of the scene. ~ George Lucas

All our lives draw in toward a single point and time, not too many miles or years from this room. A point in history when the emperor will either save us or damn us. All we can do is buy him the time he needs - and the price must be paid in blood. ~ Mark Lawrence

enough for the Republic - but the Empire is order from chaos. What we do here - and in thousands of systems just like this one - brings us closer to our ultimate goal." Sloane thought for a moment. "Perfection?" "Whatever the Emperor wants. ~ John Jackson Miller

I am king of the Romans, and above grammar. ~ Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor
Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,
Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
Or any one of you, chop off your hand
And send it to the King: he for the same
Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,
And that shall be the ransom for their fault. ~ William Shakespeare

What makes you believe that the emperor wasn't behind it? Do you have other enemies I don't know about?"
"No. It was him."
"So you're just being difficult."
"One of my enduring qualities. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Giving love is the real beautiful experience, because then you are an emperor. ~ Rajneesh

I had as I before observed, one private pocket, which escaped their search, wherein there was a pair of spectacles (which I sometimes use for the weakness of mine eyes,) a pocket perspective, and some other little conveniences; which, being of no consequence to the emperor, I did not think myself bound in honour to discover, and I apprehended they might be lost or spoiled if I ventured them out of my possession. , ~ Jonathan Swift

There is never a right time for anything. There is just a time. You throw a dart at a calendar to pick a date; and, you do it on that day." T. Mac Donald
Spoken by the character Emperor Edward III in Righteous Reign. ~ Thomas J. MacDonald

What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural loving and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? ~ Herman Melville

The wheel of Rome spins constantly. Gods rise and fall, mortals live and die, and round and round we go. We all play a part in that wheel ... And I make sure the wheel never stops spinning. You see, if the wheel stops, balance is lost. ~ Katlyn Charlesworth

Not a single bird makes its first leap from a tree without faith, and not a single animal in the jungle begins its day without faith. Faith is the flame that eliminates fear, and faith is the emperor of dreams. ~ Suzy Kassem

And cried for mamma, at every turn'-I added, 'and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain.-Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes, and those thick brows, that instead of rising arched, sink in the middle, and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes-Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet, hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.'
'In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes, and even forehead,' he replied. 'I do - and that won't help me to them.'
'A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,' I continued, 'if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking - tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows, but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them ~ Emily Bronte

But the true emperor, Luke insists, is not the one who feeds himself but who is willing to offer his life as food for the other. At the climax of his life, this child, come of age, would say to his friends, "This is my body, which will be given for you' do this in memory of me" (Lk 22:19). ~ Robert E. Barron

The Emperor himself amassed his great riches. The older he grew, the greater became his greed, his pitiable cupidity ... he and his people took millions from the state treasurer and left cemeteries full of people who had died of hunger, cemeteries visible from the windows of the royal palace ~ Haile Selassie

I am the Roman Emperor, and am above grammar. ~ Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor

That's why the Emperor needs an Empire, Kanan. It's like a space slug, whose only function is to stay alive. It's got to consume, and consume, and consume. ~ John Jackson Miller

In whatever wink of consciousness that remained to me I felt I understood the secret grandeur of dying, all the knowledge held back from all humankind until the very end: no pain, no fear, magnificent detachment, lying in state upon the death barge and receding into the grand immensities like an emperor, gone, gone, observing all the distant scurryers on shore, freed from all the old human pettiness of love and fear and grief and death. ~ Donna Tartt

If a supernatural power tries to make you a saint or an emperor, refuse it, because the greatest beauty of life hides in having no position whatsoever! Positionless is the best position! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

First Conjuration Addressed to Emperor Lucifer. Emperor Lucifer, Master and Prince of Rebellious Spirits, I adjure thee to leave thine abode, in what-ever quarter of the world it may be situated and come hither to communicate with me. ~ A. E. Waite

Within two years, they would be attacking us. The emperor has seen what we can do and he will not make the same mistakes again. One chance we have made for ourselves, Khasar. You cannot wound a bear and run. It will chase you down. ~ Conn Iggulden

To help cement the friendship between Japan and Disney, Emperor Hirohito personally presented to Roy O. Disney, for the dedication of the Magic Kingdom, a stone Japanese lantern known as a Toro to light the way to success and happiness. ~ Jim Korkis

The enemies of Christ ... could not bear his independence; his "Give the emperor that which is the emperor's" showed a contempt for the affairs of state and its politics for the moral order that their self-respect would not let them tolerate. ~ John Carroll

They do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races. ~ Emperor Hirohito

How dangerous emperors are when they go mad. ~ Walid Jumblatt

The emperor of Lilliput, attended by several of the nobility, comes to see the author in his confinement. The emperor's person and habit described. Learned men appointed to teach the author their language. He gains favour by his mild disposition. His pockets are searched, and his sword and pistols taken from him. ~ Jonathan Swift

Persistently trying to hoodwink one another, the Emperor, the kings, the princes, and the revolutionaries created an atmosphere of general distrust (like that which poisons the world today); and, in the end, though they had not directly purposed anything of the kind, they involved twenty-five million men in the cataract or a war which lasted for twenty-five years. ~ Stefan Zweig

Christmas Day 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne "Holy Roman Emperor" in the Basilica of St. Peter. The congregation acclaimed him as "Augustus," and Leo prostrated himself at Charlemagne's feet. ~ Karen Armstrong

The hardest lesson you will ever learn will be to love yourself. But you can do it. There will always be days when you hate yourself, days when you wish you had never been born. But darling, you are beautiful, and if Shakespeare had met you, you would've inspired his 18th sonnet, and if Monet had known you, he would've given up painting water lilies and chosen to paint you instead. I know it's hard to love yourself, but sometimes it's okay to be a little selfish with your love..

When you begin to feel worthless, remember that the stars died for you. You are made of elements that are thousands of years old, elements that make up every atom of your being. When you want to cut your wrists, remember that the souls of stars live in your veins. Don't kill them.

Live for the life you always wanted but were too scared to pursue.
Live for you. Live for me. Live for every person who has ever loved you, for the people who have come before you, so that you may be here today.
Live for the fire that burns in your soul, that tells you: keep going, you're almost there, just a little farther.

Because when Rome burned down the emperor didn't run away, he stayed and he sang for his people. Stay. Sing for your people. Sing for us. ~ M.K.

An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor." ~ Saint Augustine

Nonsense!" said the Emperor - but in a kindly, sympathetic tone. "Do not, I beg of you, dampen today's sun with the showers of tomorrow. For before your head has time to spoil you can have it canned, and in that way it may be preserved indefinitely. ~ L. Frank Baum

But in the years to come, as Muslim prestige and learning sank, and Hindu confidence, wealth, education and power increased, Hindus and Muslims would grow gradually apart, as British policies of divide and rule found willing collaborators among the chauvinists of both faiths. The rip in the closely woven fabric of Delhi's composite culture, opened in 1857, slowly widened into a great gash, and at Partition in 1947 finally broke in two. As the Indian Muslim elite emigrated en masse to Pakistan, the time would soon come when it would be almost impossible to imagine that Hindu sepoys could ever have rallied to the Red Fort and the standard of a Muslim emperor, joining with their Muslim brothers in an attempt to revive the Mughal Empire. ~ William Dalrymple

In the official imperial theology, the titles "Son of God" and "Lord" usually applied to the emperor and the word "gospel" referred to his achievements. By speaking of Jesus in these terms, Paul was tacitly inviting the Roman community to declare its loyalty to the true ruler of the universe. Members were to become co-conspirators with him in acknowledging that, unbeknownst to the powers that be, a fundamental change had occurred when God had vindicated the crucified Messiah.49 ~ Karen Armstrong

The Stoics taught a life of restraint and control, the personal cultivation of learning, beauty, and reason. The Stoics asked the Romans to realize that much that is encountered in life is beyond the individual's control. Make the best of what can be humanly cultivated. It is a kind of Platonism shrunk to a pursuit of private feelings and thoughts: Do the best with what you can control and refine, and let the rest go.
"The world is rational, but it is only amenable to active intervention within the limits of the individual's capacity. Do not try to be an overachiever. Do not dream of social transformation. Private cultivation rather than social action makes for the good life. Although the slave Epictetus was one of the principal Stoic writers, the emperor Marcus Aurelius's upper-class background is more typical of its devotees.
"Stoicism is a narrow ethic, one suitable to the emotional and intellectual needs of aristocrat and slave alike, but less useful for the ambitious middle class. ~ Norman F. Cantor

Ulis, he prayed, abandoning the set words, let my anger die with him. Let both of us be freed from the burden of his actions. Even if I cannot forgive him, help me not to hate him. Ulis was a cold god, a god of night and shadows and dust. His love was found in emptiness, his kindness in silence. And that was what Maia needed. Silence, coldness, kindness. He focused his thoughts carefully on the familiar iconography, the image of Ulis's open hands; the god of letting go was surely the god who would listen to an unwilling emperor. Help me not to feel hatred, he prayed, and after a while it became easier to ask that Dazhis find peace, that Maia's anger not be added to the weight against his soul. ~ Katherine Addison

There is one thing I need to be sure of," said the Emperor, taking an arrow, and placing it in the bow, cocking it back, "I need to know where your loyalties lay, Miss Roberts."
"With you, Emperor," said Areli, scared, "of course, they're with you."
"Then prove it," said the Emperor, "prove your obedience to me. Prove your allegiance." He placed the crossbow in her fingers, laced her finger against the trigger, and positioned the butt of the weapon against her shoulders. "That woman there. She's a follower, Areli. She's a deceitful little tramp that had taken residence in the bed of Degendhard's. I want you to kill her for me. I want you to punish her, for her crimes against her Empire." Areli looked at him, bewildered, with eyes that screamed, you can't be serious!
"If you don't. Then I will have no other option than to assume you have been taken to Degendhard's bed as well. You will do this, Areli. You will punish her. Prove your worth." Areli took a deep breath, feeling the smoothness of the wood and the coldness of the trigger for the first time since having the harsh weapon thrust into her hand.
The Emperor, sensing her hesitation, forced himself upon her. Her lifted her arms, and steadied the weapon into her shoulder, his chest pressed up against her back, his lips rubbing against her ear. The crossbow shook. The woman's head lulled back and forth as she was stuck in a drug rendered dream-state, not knowing that her body faced impalement.
" ~ Jeffrey Johnson

Are you a King? Are you an Emperor? Can you stop the days passing by? If you cannot, you are nothing! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

A grower of chrysanthemums awaited a visit from the emperor, who was coming to enjoy his blossoms, of which there were hundreds in bloom. The grower selected one magnificent specimen, then cut down all the others, leaving this one perfect flower. The emperor arrived and sat for several hours quietly gazing at this beautiful flower, letting its beauty have its way with him. Can you imagine being so caught up in appreciation of one flower that everything else fades into the background? ~ John Templeton

I drink a bucket of white tea in the morning. I read about this tea of the Emperor of China, which is supposedly the tea of eternal youth. It's called Silver Needle. It's unbelievably expensive, but I get it on the Web. ~ Antonio Banderas

Do not, I beg of you, dampen today's sun with the showers of tomorrow. - Emperor Nick Chopper (The Tin Woodsman) -The Marvellous Land Of Oz by L. Frank Baum pg 86 chapter 11 ~ L. Frank Baum

In short, I will preach it [the Word], teach it, write it, but I will constrain no man by force, for faith must come freely without compulsion. Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached, and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything. ~ Martin Luther

Maia screamed and woke.

'Serenity?' Cala's voice, Cala's angular shape outlined against the window.

' 'Tis an ironic title, in sooth,' Maia said feebly, realizing that the entangling garments of the nightmare were merely his bedsheets. His heart was hammering, and he was clammy with sweat. ~ Katherine Addison

The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties. ~ Neil Gaiman

Unfortunately, as one of the human writers once said, there's no progress without bloodshed. During my prison years and many battles afterwards, those words have constantly been recurring in my mind. I came to understand that the emperor character of that book spoke the unfortunate but apparent truth of this world. ~ Tamuna Tsertsvadze

Ha! And I bet you didn't even see it coming!"
– Dread Emperor Traitorous the First ~ ErraticErrata

We all ran barefooted on the dusty roads in our past, but now the Emperor wears shoes, and it is our responsibility to ensure that the barefooted child and the doting mother are afforded a holistic environment to realise their dreams and ambitions. ~ Anthony Carmona

The imprudent Maximus disregarded these salutary considerations: he gratified his resentment and ambition; he saw the bleeding corpse of Valentinian at his feet; and he heard himself saluted Emperor by the unanimous voice of the senate and people. But the day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness. ~ Edward Gibbon

The General knew he would probably die, for infantry took pleasure in killing cavalry and he would be the leading horseman in the attack on the bridge, but the General was a soldier and he had long learned that a soldier's real enemy is the fear of death. Beat that fear and victory was certain, and victory brought glory and fame and medals and money and, best of all, sweetest of all, most glorious and wondrous of all, the modest teasing grin of a short black-haired Emperor who would pat the Dragoon General as though he was a faithful dog, and the thought of that Imperial favour made the General quicken his horse and raise his battered sword. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I saw the Emperor – this world-soul – riding out of the city on reconnaissance. It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it. ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

One day, quite some time ago, I happened on a photograph of Napoleon's youngest brother, Jerome, taken in 1852. And I realized then, with an amazement I have not been able to lessen since: 'I am looking at eyes that looked at the Emperor.' Sometimes I would mention this amazement, but since no one seemed to share it, nor even to understand it (life consists of these little touches of solitude), I forgot about it. ~ Roland Barthes

You know," he added reflectively, "we've got a much easier job now than we should have had fifty years ago. If we'd had to modernise a country then it would have meant constitutional monarchy, bicameral legislature, proportional representation, women's suffrage, independent judicature, freedom of the press, referendums ... "
"What is all that?" asked the Emperor.
"Just a few ideas that have ceased to be modern. ~ Evelyn Waugh

Once, I discovered it propped up on my sister's pillow, its neck wrapped in one of our mother's best linen dishtowels. Cookie fragments on dolls' plates were laid out around it, mixed with berries from the prickly-berry hedge, like offerings made to appease an idol. It was wearing a chaplet woven of carrot fronds and marigolds that my sister and Leonie had picked in the garden. The flowers were wilted, the garland was lopsided; the effect was astonishingly depraved, as if a debauched Roman emperor had arrived on the scene and had hacked off his own body in a maiden's chamber as the ultimate sexual thrill. ~ Margaret Atwood

There are countries in which the communal provision of housing, transport, education and health care is so inferior that inhabitants will naturally seek to escape involvement with the masses by barricading themselves behind solid walls. The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where 'ordinary' life fails to answer a median need for dignity or comfort.

Then there are communities - far fewer in number and typically imbued with a strong (often Protestant) Christian heritage - whose public realms exude respect in their principles and architecture, and whose citizens are therefore under less compulsion to retreat into a private domain. Indeed, we may find that some of our ambitions for personal glory fade when the public spaces and facilities to which we enjoy access are themselves glorious to behold; in such a context, ordinary citizenship may come to seem an adequate goal. In Switzerland's largest city, for instance, the need to own a car in order to avoid sharing a bus or train with strangers loses some of the urgency it has in Los Angeles or London, thanks to Zurich's superlative train network, which is clean, safe, warm and edifying in its punctuality and technical prowess. There is little reason to travel in an automotive cocoon when, for a fare of only a few francs, an efficient, stately tramway will provide transport from point A to point B at a level of comfort an emperor might have envied.

One insight to be drawn from Christia ~ Alain De Botton

I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms, said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it. ~ C.S. Lewis

Take it all in all, I do not believe anybody on Earth has it worse than an Emperor penguin. ~ Apsley Cherry-Garrard

You want the Crown of Power," he told her. "I can help you take it."
"You are mistaken," said Kitiara gravely. "Ariakas is my Emperor. I am his loyal subject."
"And I am the king of the elves," said Raistlin with a sneer. ~ Margaret Weis

The principal difference between childhood and the stages of life into which it invariably dissolves is that as children we occupy a limitless present. The past has scarcely room to exist, since, if it means anything at all, it means only the previous day. Similarly, the future is in abeyance; we are not meant to do anything at all until we reach a suitable size. Correspondingly, the present is enormous, mainly because it is all there is.... Walks are dizzying adventures; the days tingle with unknowns, waiting to be made into wonders. Living so utterly in the present, children have an infinite power to transform; they are able to make the world into anything they wish, and they do so, with alacrity. There are no preconceptions, which is why, when a child tells us he is Napoleon, we had better behave with the respect due to a small emperor. Later in life, the transformations are forbidden; they may prove dangerous. By then, we move into a context of expectations and precedents of past and future, and the present, whenever we manage to catch it and realize it, is a shifting, elusive question mark, not altogether comfortable, an oddness that the scheme of our lives does not allow us to indulge. Habit takes over, and days tend to slip into pigeonholes, accounted for because everything has happened before, because we know by then that life is long and has to be intelligently endured. ~ Alastair Reid

On the Russian revolutionaries:
To leave your parents, faithful and loyal subjects of the Emperor, to leave your profession, to desist from having children, to lose your fortune, and to give up your civil honor, all for revolutionary conviction, makes for a league of more practical proof than any religious order. ~ Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Having completed its conquest of California in 1844, the United States looked across the Pacific for new business opportunities. In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo (then called Edo) Bay with four men-of-war, and handed over a letter for the Japanese emperor from the American president which began with the ominous words, 'You know that the United States of America now extend from sea to sea.' Denied an audience with the emperor, Perry retreated with subtle threats to return with more firepower if the Japanese did not agree to open their ports to American trade. They refused. He did as he said; and the Japanese succumbed. ~ Pankaj Mishra

The highest truth is daiji, translated as dai jiki in Chinese scriptures. This is the subject of the question the emperor asked Bodhidharma: "What is the First Principle?" Bodhidharma said, "I don't know." "I don't know" is the First Principle. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

I discovered freedom for the first time in England. ~ Emperor Hirohito

No ruler can ever get far with only militaristic power. The easiest way to conquer is to crush people's faith and convert them to your own ideology, often portraying it as heroic. I am an ambitious man – I am not just a casual pirate to steal only people's riches. I am an emperor – I shall steal people's hearts, hopes, and faith so that they will eventually have no one but me to turn to. If you put yourself in the role of a saviour, people are sure to follow you, just like a pack of lambs always follows a mighty shepherd. ~ Tamuna Tsertsvadze

They say that kings are made in the image of God. If that is what he looks like, I feel sorry for God. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

As I was working I noticed that the way I designed the differential gearing actually created a spare drive that sat directly below the emperor's feet, or where they would be if he were to sit in the chariot. ~ Kit Williams

Funny, isn't it? No matter what language they speak, everyone sounds the same when you pull out their fingernails."
– Dread Emperor Foul III, "the Linguist ~ ErraticErrata

Cixi's lack of formal education was more than made up for by her intuitive intelligence, which she liked to use from her earliest years. In 1843, when she was seven, the empire had just finished its first war with the West, the Opium War, which had been started by Britain in reaction to Beijing clamping down on the illegal opium trade conducted by British merchants. China was defeated and had to pay a hefty indemnity.

Desperate for funds, Emperor Daoguang (father of Cixi's future husband) held back the traditional presents for his sons' brides – gold necklaces with corals and pearls – and vetoed elaborate banquets for their weddings. New Year and birthday celebrations were scaled down, even cancelled, and minor royal concubines had to subsidise their reduced allowances by selling their embroidery on the market through eunuchs. The emperor himself even went on surprise raids of his concubines' wardrobes, to check whether they were hiding extravagant clothes against his orders. As part of a determined drive to stamp out theft by officials, an investigation was conducted of the state coffer, which revealed that more "than nine million taels of silver had gone missing.

Furious, the emperor ordered all the senior keepers and inspectors of the silver reserve for the previous forty-four years to pay fines to make up the loss – whether or not they were guilty.

Cixi's great-grandfather had served as one of the keepers and his share of the fine amoun ~ Jung Chang

Having read the inscriptions upon the tombstones of the great and little cemeteries, Wang Peng advised the Emperor to kill all the living and resurrect the dead. ~ Paul Eldridge

How was the flight?" Kai whispered, standing so close she imagined she could feel the vibrations of his heart in the air between them.
"Oh, you know," Cinder murmured back. "Thorne was flying, so it was a constant stream of near-death experiences. How's emperor life?"
"Oh, you know. Press conferences. Cabinet meetings. Adoring fans everywhere I go."
"So also a constant stream of near-death experiences?"
"Pretty much. ~ Marissa Meyer

And perhaps it was precisely because she knew nothing at all about chess that chess for her was not simply a parlor game or a pleasant pastime, but a mysterious art equal to all the recognized arts. She had never been in close contact with such people - there was no one to compare him with except those inspired eccentrics, musicians and poets whose image one knows as clearly and as vaguely as that of a Roman Emperor, an inquisitor or a comedy miser. Her memory contained a modest dimly lit gallery with a sequence of all the people who had in any way caught her fancy. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

One of our favorite examples of the value of Nothing is an incident in the life of the Japanese emperor Hirohito. Now, being emperor in one of the most frantically Confucianist countries in the world is not necessarily all that relaxing. From early morning until late at night, practically every minute of the emperor's time is filled in with meetings, audiences, tours, inspections, and who-knows-what. And through a day so tightly scheduled that it would make a stone wall seem open by comparison, the emperor must glide, like a great ship sailing in a steady breeze.

In the middle of a particularly busy day, the emperor was driven to a meeting hall for an appointment of some kind. But when he arrived, there was no one there. The emperor walked into the middle of the great hall, stood silently for a moment, then bowed to the empty space. He turned to his assistants, a large smile on his face. "We must schedule more appointments like this," he told them. "I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a long time. ~ Benjamin Hoff

No king or emperor in the world had the power to keep captive this nonentity, ~ Rabindranath Tagore

One of the local children had begun jeering at the Bodach'i. "That's what you get! You think you can push the Emperor around? Showed you!" One of the stormtroopers nodded in approval, then patted the child's head. That boy could be no more than seven or eight years old - the age Thane was when he'd decided to join the Imperial fleet. That was how evil magnified itself: it took root in the young and grew along with them. Each generation provided the next level of abuse. We're teaching children to approve of slavery. We're teaching them cruelty is a virtue. But ~ Claudia Gray

The clothes have no emperor. ~ Stewart Elliott Guthrie

Haiti was founderd by a righteous revolution in 1804 and became the first black republic. It was the first country to break the chains of slavery, the first to force Emperor Napoleon to retreat, and the only to aid Simón Bolívar in his struggle to liberate the indigenous people and slaves of Latin America from their colonial oppressors. ~ Paul Farmer

Globalization has shipped products at a faster rate than anything else; it's moved English into schools all over the world so that now there is Dutch English and Filipino English and Japanese English. But the ideologies stay in their places. They do not spread like the swine flu, or through sexual contact. They spread through books and films and things of that nature. The dictatorships of Latin America used to ban books, they used to burn them, just like Franco did, like Pope Gregory IX and Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Now they don't have to because the best place to hide ideologies is in books. The dictatorships are mostly gone - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay. The military juntas. Our ideologies are not secrets. Even the Ku Klux Klan holds open meetings in Alabama like a church. None of the Communists are still in jail. You can buy Mao's red book at the gift shop at the Museum of Communism. I will die soon, in the next five to ten years. I have not seen progress during my lifetime. Our lives are too short and disposable. If we had longer life expectancies, if we lived to 200, would we work harder to preserve life or, do you think that when Borges said, 'Jews, Christians, and Muslims all profess belief in immortality, but the veneration paid to the first century of life is proof that they truly believe in only those hundred years, for they destine all the rest, throughout eternity, to rewarding or punishing what one did when alive,' we would simply alter it to say 'first two centuries ~ John M. Keller

To God I speak Spanish, to women Italian, to men French, and to my horse - German. ~ Emperor Charles V

Remember, the prince is like a mirror exposed to the eyes of all his subjects who continually look to him as a pattern on which to model themselves, and who in consequence without much trouble discover his vices and virtues. ~ Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

She heard him close the door. "I was going to impress you with my romantic eloquence, of course. I'd thought to wax philosophical about the beauty of your brow."
Lucy blinked. "My brow?"
"Mmm. Have I told you that your brow intimidates me?" She felt his warmth at her back as he moved behind her, but he didn't touch her. "It's so smooth and white and broad, and ends with your straight, knowing eyebrows, like a statue of Athena pronouncing judgment. If the warrior goddess had a brow like yours, it is no wonder the ancients worshiped and feared her."
"Blather," she murmured.
"Blather, indeed. Blather is all I am, after all."
She frowned and turned to contradict him, but he moved with her so that she couldn't quite catch sight of his face.
"I am the duke of nonsense," he whispered in her ear. "The king of farce, the emperor of emptiness."
Did he really see himself so? "But - "
"Blathering is what I do best," he said, still unseen. "I'd like to blather about your golden eyes and ruby lips."
"Simon - "
"The perfect curve of your cheek," he murmured close.
She gasped as his breath stirred the hair at her neck. He was distracting her with lovemaking. And it was working. "What a lot of talk."
"I do talk too much. It's a weakness you'll have to bear in your husband." His voice was next to her ear. "But I'd have to spend quite a bit of time outlining the shape of your mouth, its
softness and the warmth within.

- ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

Because I know that the early Greeks and Romans and the early Europeans at that age did not see racism as we see it now - because racism was created to justify slavery to build the capital for capitalism - and back in the day they respected talent over race. We had an African Pope in the late 5th century, we had an African Emperor of Rome, and early church Fathers were black. ~ Immortal Technique

Don't be disgusting.
Don't dare me. I majored in disgusting at Gulag Community College. Lucrezia Borgia taught cooking, and Madame Defarge taught knitting. Emperor Nero taught violin and also led the cheerleading squad. I skipped all my classes and failed with distinction. ~ Gregory Maguire

He recounted how, after the last of Charlemagne's forty-seven victorious campaigns, when he was returning from Saxony, a comet flashed across the sky and the Emperor's horse shied and threw him to the ground. The great Frankish Emperor had fallen so violently that his sword belt had been torn off him and the Spear, which he was clasping in his left hand, had been hurled some twenty feet away from him. At the same time there were earth tremors in the Royal Palace at Aachen, and the word "Princeps" had mysteriously faded from the red ochre inscription high up on a central beam in the Cathedral, which had formerly read 'Karolus Princeps.' Charlemagne himself had taken little notice of these portents, which his courtiers had taken to be a prophecy of his imminent death. In Einhard's own words: 'He refused to admit that any of these events could have any connection ith his own personal affairs.' Yet the 70-year-old Emperor drew up his last will and testament just in case these portents were correct. And they were! ~ Trevor Ravenscroft

Are you certain of these accusations?" "I would stake my life on them, my lord Emperor." "You already have. ~ Drew Karpyshyn

We are not scholars researching an ancient Chinese emperor - a matter of objectivity and disinterestedness; we are sons and daughters who want to get to know our father - someone with whom we have an essential relationship. ~ Brian D. McLaren

Arin wanted to insist that if a secret concerned Kestrel, it concerned the emperor, and that concerned Herran. This was why he asked for Deliah's help. It was for his country. Only for that.
It was not out of worry for Kestrel.
Not out of love.
Not because the description of that dress made Arin try to imagine every possible thing that had been done to Kestrel while she wore it, or everything she might have tried to do.
In the end, none of this was easy for him to say. He was silent as he made to leave Deliah's workshop.
"She cares for you," Deliah said suddenly. "I know that she does."
It was so blatantly untrue that it almost seemed like a cruel joke.
Arin laughed. ~ Marie Rutkoski

It is not always a question of the Emperor having no clothes on. Sometimes it is, 'Is that an Emperor at all? ~ Idries Shah

In the move The Last Emperor, the young child anointed as the last emperor of China lives a magical life of luxury with a thousand eunuch servants at his command. "What happens when you do wrong?" his brother asks. "When I do wrong, someone else is punished," the boy emperor replies. To demonstrate, he breaks a jar, and one of the servants is beaten. In Christian theology, Jesus reversed that ancient pattern: when the servants erred, the King was punished. Grace is free only because the giver himself has borned the cost. ~ Philip Yancey

Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face from the window! the boy's hand on the hill!"

But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.

"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozzening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge hi ~ Herman Melville

Some may still be impatient to die for the emperor, but the chief point in life is to die of something and never for something if it can be helped. ~ William H Gass

I still can't quite grasp what you are telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people."
Amaryl said bitterly, "That's because you've never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn't smell a thing because it doesn't affect you."
Dors said, "Mr. Amaryl, Dr. Seldon is a mathematician like you and his head can sometimes be in the clouds. You must understand that. I am a historian, however. I know that it isn't unusual to have one group of people look down upon another group. There are peculiar and almost ritualistic hatreds that have no rational justification and that can have their serious historical influence. It's too bad."
Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural. We're all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We're all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren't we? ~ Isaac Asimov

James Brown opened at least six of our House of Blues clubs. He always delivered, but he demanded the respect of an emperor. But, come on, he's James Brown ! ... I got to play on stage with him. Did he ever fine me ? (Brown was known to fine players for flubbing notes or steps) - I would have loved to have been fined by James Brown ! ~ Dan Aykroyd

Miles had sworn his officer's oath to the Emperor less than two weeks ago, puffed with pride at his achievement. In his secret mind he had imagined himself keeping that oath through blazing battle, enemy torture, what-have-you, even while sharing cynical cracks afterwards with Ivan about archaic dress swords and the sort of people who insisted on wearing them.

But in the dark of subtler temptations, those that hurt without heroism for consolation, he foresaw, the Emperor would no longer be the symbol of Barrayar in his heart.

Peace to you, small lady, he thought to Raina. You've won a twisted poor modern knight, to wear your favor on his sleeve. But it's a twisted poor world we were both born into, that rejects us without mercy and ejects us without consultation. At least I won't just tilt at windmills for you. I'll send in sappers to mine the twirling suckers, and blast them into the sky....

He knew who he served now. And why he could not quit. And why he must not fail. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

I have to get out once a week and speak with people or I start thinking I'm the emperor of Abyssinia. ~ Graham Joyce