Roman Emperor Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Omnia fui, nihil expedit....'I was all things; all was worthless ~ Lucius Septimus Severus Roman Emperor 193211

A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

On Earth, God has placed no more than two powers, and as there is in Heaven but one God, so is there here one Pope and one Emperor. Divine providence has specially appointed the Roman Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church. ~ Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor

The most certain way of ensuring victory is to march briskly and in good order against the enemy, always endeavouring to gain ground. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

The ancient writer Suetonius tells the story that an inventor around 70 CE displayed to a Roman emperor a machine that could move columns, only to be dismissed with the objection that such labor-saving devices would cause the poor to starve by robbing them of employment. ~ Joel Levy

Daniel was in the greatest credit amongst the Jews, till the reign of the Roman Emperor Hadrian . And to reject his prophecies, is to reject the Christian religion. For this religion is founded upon his prophecy concerning the Messiah . ~ Isaac Newton

My cousin Francis and I are in perfect accord - he wants Milan, and so do I. ~ Charles V

A single friar who goes counter to all Christianity for a thousand years must be wrong. ~ Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

She was standing very close and looking up at him. Her eyes were big and round, but it was so dark he could barely see anything. So why was he so aware of how near her lips were to his? Why did the thought of kissing her seem burned into his brain like a mandate from both the king of England and the Holy Roman Emperor? ~ Melanie Dickerson

An army, like a serpent, travels on its belly. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

Since by the ordination of God I both am called and am Emperor of the Romans, in nothing but name shall I appear to be ruler if the control of the Roman city be wrested from my hands. ~ Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor

I make war on the living, not the dead. ~ Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

The Roman Emperor Julian, writing in the fourth century, regretted the progress of Christianity because it pulled people away from the Roman gods. He said, 'Atheism [I.e. the Christian faith!] has been specially advanced
through the loving service rendered to strangers, and through their care for the burial of the dead. It is a scandal that there is not a single Jew who is a beggar, and that the godless Galileans care not only for their own poor but for ours as well; while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them. ~ John Piper

Remember, gentlemen, what a Roman emperor said: The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Servitude of any sort is distasteful to all men, but especially objectionable is subjection to others in the case of those who ought to rule. ~ Ulrich Von Hutten

In 302, the Roman emperor Diocletian commanded "there should be cheapness," declaring, "Unprincipled greed appears wherever our armies ... march ... Our law shall fix a measure and a limit to this greed." The predictable result of Diocletian's food price controls were black markets, hunger and food confiscation by his soldiers. Despite the disastrous history of price controls, politicians never manage to resist tampering with prices
that's not a flattering observation of their learning abilities. ~ Walter E. Williams

Frederick's wit was impressive. When a descendant of Ghengis Khan, who was wreaking havoc in the Muslim world, wrote threateningly that the holy Roman Emperor should surrender his lands and come to his court to become one of his vassals, Frederick replied that he'd think about it and to please hold open the position of falconer. ~ Nancy Goldstone

It is not for the people to give laws to the prince, but to obey his mandate. ~ Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor

I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. ~ Augustus

Octavius Augustus became the first Roman emperor because the republic granted him enormous powers. And why did the republic do that? Why did it commit suicide to make way for an empire? Tacitus explains it thus: Cuncta fessa. Which means 'the whole world is tired.' Weariness in the face of political and social insecurity is what led to Rome losing its rights and freedoms. Fear induces a hunger for authoritarianism in people. Fear is a really bad adviser. And now look around you, Bruna: everyone's afraid. We're living in critical times. Our democratic system is also on the verge of suicide. Sometimes nations opt to throw themselves into the abyss. ~ Rosa Montero

In another chapter I have told you how in the year 800 a German chieftain had become a Roman Emperor. Now in the year 1066 the grandson of a Norse pirate was recognised as King of England. Why should we ever read fairy stories, when the truth of history is so much more interesting and entertaining? ~ Hendrik Willem Van Loon

To endeavor to domineer over conscience, is to invade the citadel of heaven. ~ Charles V

Without supplies no army is brave. ~ Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor

The supreme nobility of a Roman emperor does not consist in being a master of slaves, but in being a lord of free men, who loves freedom even in those who serve him. ~ Julius Evola

How absurd to try to make two men think alike on matters of religion, when I cannot make two timepieces agree. ~ Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Oh, but once my memories had pulsed with the blood-heat of life. In desperation, I forced myself to recall that once, I had walked with kings and conversed in languages never heard in this land. Once I had stood at the prow of a Sea Wolf ship and sailed oceans unknown to seamen here. I had ridden horses through desert lands, and dined on exotic foods in Arab tents. I had roamed Constantinople's fabled streets, and bowed before the Holy Roman Emperor's throne. I had been a slave, a spy, a sailor. Advisor and confidant of lords, I had served Arabs, Byzantines, and barbarians. I had worn captive's rags, and the silken robes of a Sarazen prince. Once I had held a jeweled knife and taken a life with my own hand. Yes, and once I had held a loving woman in my arms and kissed her warm and willing lips ... Death would have been far, far better than the gnawing, aching emptiness that was now my life. ~ Stephen R. Lawhead

The trust in Rome's coins was so strong that even outside the empire's borders, people were happy to receive payment in denarii. In the first century AD, Roman coins were an accepted medium of exchange in the markets of India, even though the closest Roman legion was thousands of miles away. The Indians had such a strong confidence in the denarius and the image of the emperor that when local rulers struck coins of their own they closely imitated the denarius, down to the portrait of the Roman emperor! ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Saint Helena," Dennis said, "also known as the empress Helena was the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the great. Birthdate not known but thought to be either 246 or 250AD. Died 330AD. Famous for finding the relics from Christ's crucifixion. She found the nails and rope used to fix him to his cross. She also found the cross on which he was crucified. She found a total of three crosses and had a woman from Jerusalem, who was near death, touch each one. When the woman touched the third cross she was cured. ~ Julian Noyce

Moving forward fourteen hundred years, to sixteenth-century Europe, we hear a similar lament from the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor: "It is hard enough to marry a man . . . whom you do not know or love, and worse still to be required to leave home and kindred, and follow a stranger to the ends of the earth, without even being able to speak his language."4 ~ Stephanie Coontz

No flirting, wicked girl. I know I'm your type." "I can't help it," she said. "I spread for Roman collars. What ~ Tiffany Reisz

Adventure comes with no guarantees or promises. Risk and reward are conjoined twins - and that's why my favorite piece of advice needs translation but no disclaimers: Fortes fortuna juvat. 'Fortune favors the brave,' the ancient Roman dramatist Terrence declared. In other words, there are many good reasons not to toss your life up in the air and see how it lands. Just don't let fear be one of them. ~ Mary South

A linguist deaf to the poetic functions of language and a literary scholar indifferent to linguistics are equally flagrant anachronisms. ~ Roman Jakobson

Propping up a seat at the bar we devour chicken wings like life does dreams ~ David Louden

Christianity was created by some decadent and degenerated Romans as a tool of oppression, in the late Roman era, and it should be treated accordingly. It is like handcuffs to the mind and spirit and is nothing but destructive to mankind. In fact I don't really see Christianity as a religion. It is more like a spiritual plague, a mass psychosis, and it should first and foremost be treated as a problem to be solved by the medical science. Christianity is a diagnosis. It's like Islam and the other Asian religions, a HIV/AIDS of the spirit and mind. ~ Varg Vikernes

I imagine you not telling me to whisper. I imagine you not saying oh don't say this literally. You want me to evoke as opposed to mere describing. You want me to be an invisible scribe that an octoepoose was hiding. I'm not sure if my facial features are an autograph that your Picasso smile is signing. Infamous for the mirror I shook when my sock puppets were pining? I am not just a fish that you gave wings to! I don't simply flop in the air whenever you brush some mannequinn's hair. There is a reason for the bad timing. Exquisite imbalances. A child enjoying the pink sky. I won't say that is my clue! Playing The Beatles on a kazoo is beautiful oooh ooooh
Your laughter is a woman with alot of eyeballs on her stomach that pretends that she doesn't see the colors of all them songs. In the pre dawn hours we dance with delusions and illusions. The eternal seamstress does not care for Frakenstein's dress(she still loves our unique caress ) She loves and laughs despite some so-called scientist. Where is that emperor and his nakedness! Darling, our atoms need never split. We compliment in so many ways that all our night's and days have become one swirling sunrise/sunset that only true lovers can scoff at(those who shhhhh) The flower is not passive or apologetic. It blooms through the fractured net. Floating magnetic(eep eeep)
You are not just some seductress. You are the leader of an elite group of intergalactic seductress impersonators who reveal corruption but then ch ~ Junipurr- Sometimes Trudy

When she was younger, my mother was quite committed to Roman Catholicism. But she got disillusioned with it and moved closer to something like Buddhist beliefs near the end of her life. ~ Ralph Fiennes

I realized then how odd it must seem to them to be summoned by a woman. Roman women were at home quietly minding their business or else doing what wives were known to do in joke and song: boss, nag, forbid. As a foreign queen I was the only woman who was their equal and had the power to summon them, question them, and advise them on matters other than domestic details. I thought that a pity; there should be others. ~ Margaret George

General Trajan's hand closed around the watch.
What a silly gift to give a man who led nighttime assaults where stealth could mean the difference between life and death. "Give it to me," Kestrel said. "I will find a nice convenient rock to drop it on."
The general smiled a little. "When the emperor gives you a gift, it's best to wear it. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Mercy might be the mark of a great man, but then so's a tombstone."
– Extract from the personal memoirs of Dread Emperor Terribilis II ~ ErraticErrata

The most superficial student of Roman history must be struck by the extraordinary degree in which the fortunes of the republic were affected by the presence of foreigners, under different names, on her soil. ~ Henry James Sumner Maine

That's a hobby of mine - to do whatever I can for unusual for-hire creative projects. I am waiting for someone to really challenge me - obviously I'm often approached to do film related work, but I would be very happy to design a bar or an amusement park ride. I would love to be an imagineer! ~ Roman Coppola

Oh what foul traitor in your midst could have called such a pestilence down upon the very, er, Shakrathly presence of his own beloved Emperor! For shame! ~ Dave Stone

Am I religious? I practice a disorganized religion. I belong to an unholy disorder. We call ourselves "Our Lady of Perpetual Consternation." We are as celibate as fifty percent of the heterosexual Roman Catholic clergy. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

Christianity challenged Rome's most basic set of values. The peculiar, mysterious religion forced a distinction - between what it meant to be a Roman and what it meant to be a Christian. The church fathers were quite aware that they were Roman citizens, but they also understood that their faith in Christ transcended the political and social values of their day. ~ Michael Babcock

Frank Zhang, you should know!" Frank flinched. "I should?" "A son of Ares stood here!" Hedge cried indignantly. "I'm Roman ... so Mars, actually." "Whatever! Famous spot in the American Civil War!" "I'm Canadian, actually. ~ Rick Riordan

The task is to investigate speech sounds in relation to the meanings with which they are invested, i.e., sounds viewed as signifiers, and above all to throw light on the structure of the relation between sounds and meaning. ~ Roman Jakobson

I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets. ~ Roman Payne

Your greatest challenge is to not be distracted by that which happens in front of you, or is pulling on you or calling to you, but instead to find your center and magnetize to yourself all those things that are in alignment with your inner being ~ Sanaya Roman

It is once again the vexing problem of identity within variety; without a solution to this disturbing problem there can be no system, no classification. ~ Roman Jakobson

When one photographer edged too close to the wolves, tirelessly dogging McIntyre for the best place to perch his bazooka-size lens I could see daggers in the eyes of the vvolunteers. But McIntyre was welcoming. Some individuals, her told me, could move freely about the valley; others were ruthlessly punished, chased off, or worse. He was talking about wolves. ~ Joe Roman

Greed, crowned emperor,
rules the earth with cold disdain
for harmony's path. ~ Aberjhani

This variety of objects will suspend, for some time, the course of the narrative; but the interruption will be censured only by those readers who are insensible to the importance of laws and manners, while they peruse, with eager curiosity, the transient intrigues of a court, or the accidental event of a battle. ~ Edward Gibbon

With the news that he would soon be a daddy again, Steve seemed inspired to work even harder. Our zoo continued to get busier, and we had trouble coping with the large numbers. The biggest draw was the crocodiles. Crowds poured in for the croc shows, filling up all the grandstands. The place was packed.
Steve came up with a monumental plan. He was a big fan of the Colosseum-type arenas of the Roman gladiator days. He sketched out his idea for me on a piece of paper.
"Have a go at this, it's a coliseum," he declared, his eyes wide with excitement. He drew an oval, then a series of smaller ovals in back of it. "Then we have crocodile ponds where the crocs could live. Every day a different croc could come out for the show and swim through a canal system"--he sketched rapidly--"then come out in the main area."
"Canals," I said. "Could you get them to come in on cue?"
"Piece of cake!" he said. "And get this! We call it…the Crocoseum!"
His enthusiasm was contagious. Never mind that nothing like this had ever been done before. Steve was determined to take the excitement and hype of the ancient Roman gladiators and combine it with the need to show people just how awesome crocs really were.
But it was a huge project. There was nothing to compare it to, because nothing even remotely similar had ever been attempted anywhere in the world. I priced it out: The budget to build the arena would have to be somewhere north of eight million dollars, a huge expense. ~ Terri Irwin

the emperor had chewed off his balls and stuffed a one-way ticket to the Black Sea up his rectum [Marcus Corvinus explains what happened to Ovid] ~ David Wishart

After Justinian became Emperor: "He was a man of deep piety, which he signalized, two years after his accession, by closing the schools of philosophy in Athens, where paganism still reigned. The dispossessed philosophers betook themselves to Persia, where the king received them kindly. But they were shocked
more so, says Gibbon, than became philosophers
by the Persian practices of polygamy and incest, so they returned home again, and faded into obscurity." How tumultuous thou art, sixth century! ~ Bertrand Russell

To put it plainly, women enjoyed higher status and more autonomy among Christians than among pagans, and could expect better treatment from their husbands. Pagan Roman women were "three times as likely as Christians to have married before age 13," according to the sociologist Rodney Stark.3 Christian women also exercised far more choice in whom they wed, and were less likely to be forced into an abortion (a frequent cause of death for women of the time). ~ Vincent Carroll

I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor, just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away! ~ Graham Chapman

Years go by. I go here, I go there, I have all sorts of adventures, and then I look back and say, 'Wow that's kind of an unusual way to live your life.' ~ Roman Coppola

The oldest among Kashmiris often claim that their is nothing new about their condition, that they they have been slaves of foreign rulers since the sixteenth century, when the Moghul emperor Akbar annexed Kashmir and appointed a local governer to rule the state. In the chaos of post-Moghul India, the old empire rapidly disintegrating, Afghani and Sikh invaders plundered Kashmir at will. The peasantry was taxed and taxed into utter wretchedness; the cultural and intellectual life, which under indigenous rulers had produced some of the greatest poetry, music, and philosophy in the subcontinent, dried up. Barbaric rules were imposed in the early nineteenth century, a Sikh who killed a native of Kashmir was fined nothing more than two rupees. Victor Jacquemont, a botanist and friend of Stendahl's who came to the valley in 1831, thought that nowhere else in India were the masses as poor and denuded as they were in Kashmir. ~ Pankaj Mishra

It is not the young man who misses the days he does not know,' the Roman general Marcus Aurelius wrote. 'It is us, the living, who bear the pain of those lost days. ~ Francis J. "Bing" West Jr.

History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. ~ Edward Gibbon

Bow down, I am the emperor of dreams. ~ Clark Ashton Smith

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

The comedy in our lives was those first few weeks we lived together in Paris: Our bodies desired one another, our souls opened for one another. We experienced all of the happiness and anguish of first love. Those first few weeks in Paris, we barely touched lips; yet the few times we did, it had the force of a collision of stars. ~ Roman Payne

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