Empires Quotes

The Papacy is not other than the Ghost of the deceased Roman Empire, sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. ~ Thomas Hobbes

Modern Western empires are different from empires of old as well as the Soviet empire of yesterday in one important respect: they combine a democratic political system at home with despotism abroad. Even in the German case, as Sheldon Wolin reminds us, Nazi terror was not applied to the population generally. So long as democracy is a living reality at home, democratic empires are potentially self-correcting. ~ Mahmood Mamdani

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. ~ Aristotle.

This papal document - which has not yet been repudiated by the Catholic Church - was the basis for the Christian justification of colonialism and the building of competitive Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch, French, Belgian, German, and other Euro-Christian empires that spanned the world.13 It was the genocide card that was given to every white Christian nation. ~ Brian D. McLaren

At the age of fifty-six Eleanor Stoddard was still a beautiful woman. She owned three hotels in France and another two in England. From nothing at all, she had built an empire. Eleanor had it all. Her one weakness was the young man sleeping beside her. ~ Barbara Taylor Bradford

People [in US] are starting to rethink this idea of empire, this idea of the United States being this superpower, the hegemon, is not working, and we can't afford it anymore. ~ Peter Kuznick

Geological facts being of an historical nature, all attempts to deduce a complete knowledge of them merely from their still, subsisting consequences, to the exclusion of unexceptionable testimony, must be deemed as absurd as that of deducing the history of ancient Rome solely from the medals or other monuments of antiquity it still exhibits, or the scattered ruins of its empire, to the exclusion of a Livy, a Sallust, or a Tacitus. ~ Richard Kirwan

How often has not the parallel been drawn and the golden age of the Roman Empire, when the external brilliancy of life likewise dazzled the eye, notwithstanding that the social diagnosis could yield no other verdict than 'rotten to the very core'? ~ Abraham Kuyper

Great persons, like great empires, leave their mark on history. ~ Janet Wallach

If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire. ~ Pat Buchanan

New England is a finished place. Its destiny is that of Florence or Venice, not Milan while the American empire careens onward toward its unpredicted end ... It is the first American section to be finished to achieve stability in the conditions of its life. It is the first old civilization, the first permanent civilization in America. ~ Bernard DeVoto

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction. ~ Martin Scorsese

Such was the end of Philip (II, king of Macedonia) ... He had ruled 24 years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire among the Hellenes (Greeks), while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy. ~ Diodorus Siculus

The Empire State Building was tall. So what? Just proved New York builders didn't know when to stop at a good story. ~ Craig L. Rice

In careless ignorance they think it civilization, when in reality it is a portion of their slavery ... To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false pretenses, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. ~ Tacitus

The Mirror Empire is the most original fantasy I've read in a long time, set in a world full of new ideas, expanding the horizons of the genre. A complex and intricate book full of elegant ideas and finely-drawn characters. ~ Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Sixties are now considered a historical period, just like the Roman Empire. ~ Dave Barry

All empires become arrogant. It is their nature. ~ Edward Rutherfurd

It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. ~ Winston Churchill

There is a beginning and end to all life - and to all human endeavors. Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I'm OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems. ~ Yvon Chouinard

When you put gas in your car you are making a political statement, because you are supporting the empires that control and continue the destruction of some countries. ~ Javier Bardem

Blood was the mortar that cemented the kingdom ~ Jocelyn Murray

Solomon never had a degree,
but he mastered wisdom.
David never had a degree,
but he mastered warfare.
Moses never had a degree,
but he mastered leadership.
Asaph never had a degree,
but he mastered music.
Ahitophel never had a degree,
but he mastered common sense.

Job never had a degree,
but he mastered patience.
Elijah never had a degree,
but he mastered preaching.
Daniel never had a degree,
but he mastered oracles.
Paul never had a degree,
but he mastered theology.
Jesus never had a degree,
but he mastered life.

Imhotep never went to university,
but he built pyramids.
Amenhotep never went to university,
but he built schools.
Thutmose never went to university,
but he built pyramids.
Akhenaten never went to university,
but he built states.
Ramses never went to university,
but he built empires. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Empires exist for the benefit of the parent state. That, and the fact that the colonists eventually came to appreciate this truth, goes a long way toward explaining the origins of the American Revolution. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the authorities in London, the seat of Great Britain's empire, ~ John Ferling

I have always been a soldier. I have known no other life. The calling of arms, I have followed from boyhood. I have never sought another.

I have known lovers, sired offspring, competed in games, and committed outrages when drunk. I have vanquished empires, yoked continents, been crowned as an immortal before gods and men. But always I have been a soldier. ~ Steven Pressfield

An age of expansion really did begin, but the phenomenon was of an expanding world, not, as some historians say, of European expansion. The world did not simply wait passively for European outreach to transform it as if touched by a magic wand. Other societies were already working magic of their own, turning states into empires and cultures into civilizations. Some of the most dynamic and rapidly expanding societies of the fifteenth century were in the Americas, southwest and northern Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. ~ Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

How do you have a democratic empire, how do you have an imperial foreign policy built on a democracy polity. It's like some sort of strange mythical beast that's part lion, part dragon. You know at the bottom is a democracy, and then it's an imperial power around the world. ~ Mark Danner

This is an age of superstition and wishful thinking. The sky is full of evening's empires, and every one of them is founded on sand. ~ Paul McAuley

The Romanovs are overtaken by the Indian Maharajahs as American heiresses pick over the carcasses of fallen Empire. ~ Suzy Menkes

Don't underestimate the ripple effect of what you do. These kinds of actionshave toppled empires. ~ Leila Janah

Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.
(Los Angeles Times, July 20, 2003) ~ Edward W. Said

The English sent all their bores abroad, and acquired the Empire as a punishment. ~ Edward Bond

The same sand currents had swallowed up and destroyed flourishing cities and great empires. They called it the "sabulation" of the Roman Empire, if he remembered rightly. ~ Kobo Abe

I have seen tyrants come and go, and each seems more invincible and more terrible than the last. They all fail. Empires arise and crumble. What matters is what each of us do where we are, when we are. ~ Christopher R. Taylor

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. ~ Winston S. Churchill

The Romans have provided a lot of writers with a model for various interstellar empires, of course, and no wonder. The Roman Empire is a really good example of a large empire that, in one form or another, functioned for quite a long time over a very large area. And over all that time, there was all sorts of exciting drama – civil wars and assassinations and revolts and bits breaking off and being forced back in ... But I didn't want my future – however fanciful it was – to be entirely European. The Radchaai aren't meant to be Romans in Space. ~ Ann Leckie

I'm a businesswoman who's serious about her money. I want an empire. ~ Toni Braxton

Jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life. Plenty of wealthy Christians are suffocating from the weight of the American dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace. This is the yoke from which we are being set free. And as we are liberated from the yoke of global capitalism, our sisters and brothers in Guatemala, Liberia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka will also be liberated. Our family overseas, who are making our clothes, growing our food, pumping our oil, and assembling our electronics
they too need to be liberated from the empire's yoke of slavery. Their liberation is tangled up with our own. ~ Shane Claiborne

It's always been the case that you have the really rich, and the really poor. But hey, look, all the great empires have their periods where they rule the world, and then they crumble. ~ Mickey Rourke

White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires ... We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what architecture was ... we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it. ~ Al Sharpton

Kvothe continued, smiling himself "I see you laugh. Very well, for simplicity's sake, let us assume I am the center of creation. In doing this, let us pass over innumerable boring stories: the rise and fall of empires, sagas of heroism, ballads of tragic love. Let us hurry forward to the only tale of any real importance." His smile broadened. "Mine. ~ Patrick Rothfuss

It's hard to imagine a more potent sign of a weak, declining empire than having one's national 'credibility' depend upon periodically bombing other countries. ~ Glenn Greenwald

Among the innumerable monuments of architecture constructed by the Romans, how many have escaped the notice of history, how few have resisted the ravages of time and barbarism! And yet even the majestic ruins that are still scattered over Italy and the provinces, would be sufficient to prove that those countries were once the seat of a polite and powerful empire. ~ Edward Gibbon

Silence!" Korbolo snapped. He eyed Duiker. "You are the historian who rode with Coltaine."

The historian faced him. "I am."

"You are a soldier."

"As you say."

"I do, and so you shall die with these soldiers, in a manner no different-"

"You mean to slaughter ten thousand unarmed men and women, Korbolo Dom?"

"I mean to cripple Tavore before she even sets foot on this continent. I mean to make her too furious to think. I mean to crack that façade so she dreams of vengeance day and night, poisoning her every decision."

"You always fashioned yourself as the Empire's harshest Fist, didn't you, Korbolo Dom? As if cruelty's a virtue… ~ Steven Erikson

Humans are by nature self-centered. It doesn't matter how civilized or primitive they are. If they want something, they'll find a way to get it or take it. The old empires used land, women, religion, pride in one's nationality, or preservation of their culture as an excuse to start war. Presently, you use technology, world policing, expanding markets, and protecting national interest, but the underlying theme has never changed. As long as there are greedy people in this world, there will always be wars. ~ Ednah Walters

America is an empire that does not wish to be one ; we are easily discouraged from doing what must be done to maintain the global order that allows democracy and prosperity to flourish. ~ Orson Scott Card

Everest has a special place in all of our imaginations. For centuries, Everest was a little bit like the moon. It was the place where everyone wanted to go. Empires wanted to be able to say that they were the first to put a climber on top of Everest. So when a tragedy happens up on that mountain, I think it has a global resonance. Everybody's heard of Everest. Everybody knows what Everest is and what it means, and the significance. ~ Richard Engel

Even tiny empires fall. ~ Erin Morgenstern

Passivity can be a provoking modus operandi;
Consider the Empire and Gandhi. ~ Ogden Nash

The Russian empire under czars and commissars has been hard to deal with for other countries. ~ Henry A. Kissinger

That was the ace hidden up the sleeves of the Jardines, Mathesons and Dents of the world. Despite all their cacklings about Free Trade, the truth was that their commercial advantages had nothing to do with markets or trade or more advanced business practices – it lay in the brute firepower of the British Empire's guns and gunboats. ~ Amitav Ghosh

The English, a spirited nation, claim the empire of the sea; the French, a calmer nation, claim that of the air. ~ Louis XVIII Of France

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice. ~ Edward W. Said

It makes one sad to see the sell-out of President Fox, really it makes one sad. How sad that the president of a people like the Mexicans lets himself become the puppy dog of the empire. ~ Hugo Chavez

One answer to the transitory nature of imperial rule, in short, is that there is a Newtonian third law of empires. The exercise of imperial power generates an opposite and equal reaction among those affected by it, until they so reorganize themselves as to blunt the imperial edge. ~ Peter Heather

Man has ruled this world as a stumbling demented child king, long enough. And as his empire crumbles, my precious black widow shall rise as his most fitting successor. ~ Vincent Price

Individuals build empires because they want their names to echo through time. They build massive constructs of stone and steel so that their descendants will remember the people who created the world that they only live in. There were buildings on Earth that were thousands of years old, sometimes the only remaining evidence of empires that thought they would last forever. Hubris, the professor had called it. When people build, they are trying to make an aspiration physical. When they die, their intentions are buried with them. All that's left is the building.
[Ozymandias syndrome, anyone? Ed.] ~ James S.A. Corey

Europe is a molehill. All great empires and revolutions have been on the Orient; six hundred millions live there. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

The End of our Foundation is the knowledge of Causes; and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible. ~ Francis Bacon

In the foreign country, we call the past, crucifixion was a common punishment. It was invented by the Persians, carried back to Europe by Alexander the Great, and widely used in Mediterranean empires. ~ Steven Pinker

And how would he learn his history now? Imagine growing up in a world where only generals and geniuses, empires and companies, had histories, not your own town or grandfather, house or Samantha - none of the things you'd loved. ~ William H Gass

Assyria soon discovered a painful truth: empires are like Ponzi schemes: financial frauds in which previous investors are paid returns out of new investors' deposits. The costs of holding imperial territory can only be underwritten by loot and tribute extracted by constant new conquests; empires must continue to expand if they are not to collapse. ~ Paul Kriwaczek

Each moment has its sickle, emulous Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root. ~ Edward Young

ACKBAR - O knavery Most vile, O trick of Empire's basest wit. A snare, a ruse, a ploy: and we the fools. What great deception hath been plied today - O rebels, do you hear? Fie, 'tis a trap! ~ Ian Doescher

It's time for the people of the Empire State to strike back. ~ Andrew Cuomo

I am not a well educated man except that I have educated myself, and,
because I have educated myself, what I say will not stand up, for lack of recognized authority. This in turn leaves me free to say what I will, in the hope that, like those small forces that do not threaten empires and are thus not fully pursued, the things in which I believe can survive in some high and forgotten place until the power of empire subsides.
And although I know that few will listen to or credit this, I think we are in a lost age, in which holiness and charity have been traded for the victory and penetration of knowledge, though all the knowledge in the world has not brought us any further than where we can go without it even in the outermost halls of grace. I believe that more is to be known and apprehended from the beauty of a face than in delving, no
matter how deep, simply into how things work, no matter how marvelous that may be. The greatest substance of the world is immaterial, the province of the heart, and its study cannot be forced or reasoned. Merely to touch upon the edge of things in parsing their mechanics is to forswear their fullness, for the entry to this fullness lies not in science but in art. I cannot prove this, for it cannot be proven, but I claim, assert, and have seen it. ~ Mark Helprin

All empires are created of blood and fire. ~ Pablo Escobar

The American empire should be destroyed. ~ Aleksandr Dugin

Augustine recast how people should view history, that history was not the story of the rise and fall of empires because those are human things. Those are the city of man. Rather, true history should be the history of salvation, of man moving toward God. It's a focus that takes the light off of this world and shines it much more brightly on the next world. ~ Thomas F. Madden

We look back on history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling; revolutions and counter-revolutions succeeding one another; wealth accumulating and wealth dispersed; one nation dominant and then another. As Shakespeare's King Lear puts it, "the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon." In one lifetime I've seen my fellow countrymen ruling over a quarter of the world, and the great majority of them convinced – in the words of what is still a favorite song – that God has made them mighty and will make them mightier yet. I've heard a crazed Austrian announce the establishment of a German Reich that was to last for a thousand years; an Italian clown report that the calendar will begin again with his assumption of power; a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite as wiser than Solomon, more enlightened than Ashoka, more humane than Marcus Aurelius. I've seen America wealthier than all the rest of the world put together; and with the superiority of weaponry that would have enabled Americans, had they so wished, to outdo an Alexander or a Julius Caesar in the range and scale of conquest. All in one little lifetime – gone with the wind: England now part of an island off the coast of Europe, threatened with further dismemberment; Hitler and Mussolini seen as buffoons; Stalin a sinister name in the regime he helped to found and dominated totally for three decades; Americans haunted by fears of running out of the precious ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

Ah, I wager you are most assuredly not useless as a woman, Caecelia. ~ Sai Marie Johnson

She is the centre of my world. The Armenians believed that Ararat was the centre of the world; but the mountain was divided between three great empires, and the Armenians ended up with none of it, so I shan't continue this comparison. I love you. ~ Julian Barnes

Well, normally I'm against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big. - Pete Seeger (on how he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year) ~ Pete Seeger

History. The more of it you have the more you have to live it. After a little while there gets to be too much of it to memorize and maybe that's when empires start to decline. ~ John Updike

Ah, does my princess now want what I offer? ~ Sai Marie Johnson

Stories are nations, empires. ~ Jess Walter

Our German Fatherland to which I hope will be granted ... to become in the future as closely united, as powerful, and as authoritative as once the Roman world-empire was, and that, just as in the old times they said, Civis romanus sum, hereafter, at some time in the future, they will say, I am a German citizen. ~ Wilhelm II

Civilizations rose and fell; what caused them to be remembered was not their contribution to knowledge or culture, not even the size of their empires, but rather how much force they extorted upon the landscape. ~ Max Barry

I fear that I am not made for rough touch ~ Sai Marie Johnson

May peace rule the universe; may peace rule in kingdoms and empires; may peace rule in states and in the lands of the potentates; may peace rule in the house of friends and may peace also rule in the house of enemies. ~ Virchand Gandhi

The true key to the declension of the Roman empire which is not to be found in all Gibbon 's immense work may be stated in two words: the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Italy, on the breaking up of the Roman Empire, society might be said to be resolved into its original elements, - into hostile atoms, whose only movement was that of mutual repulsion. ~ Edward Everett

What sets imperialism of the capitalist sort apart from other conceptions of empire is that it is the capitalist logic that typically dominates, though ... there are times in which the territorial logic comes to the fore. But this then poses a crucial question: how can the territorial logics of power, which tend to be awkwardly fixed in space, respond to the open spatial dynamics of endless capital accumulation? And what does endless capital accumulation imply for the territorial logics of power? ~ David Harvey

Because girls who were building empires for themselves did not need kingdoms to shine. ~ Nikita Gill

I can not give you the reference of Ram Chandar or Krishna, because they were not historical figures. I can not help it but to present to you the names of (Hazrat) Abu Bakar (RA) and (Hazrat) Umar Farooq (RA). They were leaders of a vast Empire, yet they lived a life of austerity. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Concentrate ... for the greatest achievements are reserved for the man of single aim, in whom no rival powers divide the empire of the soul. ~ Orison Swett Marden

We have a choice, all of us, in seeing the world and system we participate in. At some point, we are confronted with the cost. What suffers for happiness. What dies for life. Even Caesar couldn't keep such a thing hidden, the blood that waters an empire's soil. You have a choice. You can choose to close your eyes and enjoy your lucky position on the good earth. You can choose to walk away.

Or you can choose to rebel. ~ A.J. Hackwith

None of them understand ... they can't see the enormity of time the way I can, the way it swallows all our striving ... they want to live solely in the moment, not realizing that for our kind the moment never ends. Empires have come and gone, continents have been discovered and populated from shore to shore, men have walked on the moon, wars have consumed the planet ... everything dies, but we remain. We are witnesses to the endless decay of the world. No matter how high we rise, eventually ... ashes to ashes, we all fall down. ~ Dianne Sylvan

Raindrops misted the Ridderzal's immense rosette window. Water dripped from the architectural tracery that turned the window into a stained glass cog. It streaked the colored panes of oculi and quatrefoils depicting the empire's arms: a rosy cross surrounded by the arms of the great families all girded by the teeth of the universal cog. ~ Ian Tregillis

I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity ... ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Wherever God may keep you at any time, from there itself must you undertake the pilgrimage to God-realization. In all forms, in action and non-action is He, the One Himself. While attending to your work with your hands, keep yourself bound to Him by sustaining japa, the constant remembrance of Him in your heart and mind. In God's empire, it is forgetfulness of Him that is detrimental. The way to Peace lies in the remembrance of Him and of Him alone. ~ Anandamayi Ma

Whatever alleged 'truth' is proven by results to be but an empty fiction, let it be unceremoniously flung into the outer darkness, among the dead gods, dead empires, dead philosophies, and other useless lumber and wreckage! ~ Anton Szandor LaVey

I'm building an empire. How do you know I won't be the next [Universal Music Group Chairman/CEO] Doug Morris one day? I'm doing a hell of a job, and I'm on the road to that next level. ~ DJ Khaled

I am not carrying on a war of extermination against the Romans. I am contending for honor and empire. My ancestors yielded to Roman valour. I am endeavouring that others, in their turn, will be obliged to yield to my good fortune, and my valour. ~ Hannibal

Gwen found herself in possession, coolly palmed in her thoughts like a dollar coin, of the idea that she was about to bring another abandoned son into the world, the son of an abandoned son. The heir to a history of disappointment and betrayal, violence, and loss. Centuries of loss, empires of disappointment. All the anger that Gwen had been feeling, not just today or over the past nine months but all her life
feeding on to it like a sun, using it to power her engines, to fund her stake in the American dream
struck her for the first time as a liability. As purely tragic. There was no way to partake of it without handing it on down the generations. ~ Michael Chabon

Moreover it is becoming the Britons, whether scientific or unscientific, who boast at all fitting occasions of their aptitude to rule the waves, should know something of the population of their saline empire, especially of those parts of it immediately in contact with their terrestrial domain, and the coasts of the Continent to which our United Kingdom appertains. ~ Edward Forbes

When I was a girl, the idea that the British Empire could ever end was absolutely inconceivable. And it just disappeared, like all the other empires. You know, when people talk about the British Empire, they always forget that all the European countries had empires. ~ Doris Lessing

We keep falling into the same ditches, you know? I mean, we learn more and more about the physical universe, more about our own bodies, more technology, but somehow, down through history, we go on building empires of one kind or another, then destroying them in one way or another. We go on having stupid wars that we justify and get passionate about, but in the end, all they do is kill huge numbers of people, maim others, impoverish still more, spread disease and hunger, and set the stage for the next war. And when we look at all of that in history, we just shrug our shoulders and say, well, that's the way things are. That's the way things always have been. ~ Octavia E. Butler

The builders of the British Indian Empire have patiently built its four pillars-the European interests, the army, the Indian princes and the communal divisions. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Islam united all heresies persecuted in Byzantine Empire and synthesised them well into a conseffion that later became a symbol of Arab self-affirmation. ~ Lev Gumilev