Rome Quotes

Every day you live is a lesson in itself. ~ T.A. Uner

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

There's only one reason to be crucified under the Roman Empire, and that is for treason or sedition. Crucifixion, we have to understand, was not actually a form of capital punishment for Rome. In fact, it was often the case that the criminal would be killed first and then crucified. ~ Reza Aslan

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix. ~ Stacy Schiff

Auctions are a venerable selling institution, in use since the time of Herodotus. The word comes from the Latin auctus, meaning to increase. An obscure term for auction, one guaranteed to impress friends and neighbors, is the Latin word subhastare. It is the conjunction of sub, meaning "under," and hasta, meaning "spear." After a military victory, a Roman soldier would plant his spear in the ground to mark the location of his spoils. Later, he would put these goods up for sale by auction.
¹The highest bidder was called the emptor, whence the term caveat emptor. ~ Rakesh V. Vohra

The younger generation forms a country of its own. ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

What a waste that we lost Mussolini. He is a first-rate man who would have led our party to power in Italy. [Addressing to a delegation of Italian socialists in Moscow after Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922] ~ Vladimir Lenin

There was a time when doing "Zoolander 2" that I was literally flying between the "Zoolander" shoot and "The Leftovers" in Texas and at that point, I was getting comedy whiplash. It was a relief, though, to get to Rome and be like, "Oh my God, I get to laugh on set." ~ Justin Theroux

The horses forced into the chuckwagon races die of heart attacks, broken necks, broken legs, and other injuries. It'd be easy to get off on western tradition without this bloody spectacle. Dude, it's the Old West, not ancient Rome! ~ Tommy Lee

Against all the odds, we built a better navy than theirs - from scratch - in two months! We now rule the waves in the Mediterranean Sea - Our Sea! The day will come - it begins today - when Rome will master the world! Alexander will roll in his grave, Atlantis will decay in her decadence, and these demons of Harappa will entertain Hades with their theatrics this very night. But Rome will live on in fame and glory. It starts with our victory today! ~ Jennifer McKeithen

that was how plenty of people felt in 634 BC in Rome, as well, when they were convinced that the city was destined to collapse after 120 years of existence. It is how people have felt at countless points in history since then. Try searching Google's library of digitised manuscripts for the phrase 'these uncertain times', and you'll find that it occurs over and over, in hundreds of journals and books, in virtually every decade the database encompasses, reaching back to the seventeenth century. 'As a matter of fact,' Watts insisted, 'our age is no more insecure than any other. Poverty, disease, war, change and death are nothing new. ~ Oliver Burkeman

Anywhere I go, there is always an incredible crowd that follows me. In Rome, as I land at the airport, even the men kiss me. I love Rome. ~ Muhammad Ali

I have wished to crush Rome that I might crush Christianity. ~ Otto Von Bismarck

As the tension between the Protestants and the Church of Rome intensified, so did the desire for a third way among dissenting groups. Soon a new group emerged, though in some senses it was also an old group - one that felt it could trace its origins all the way back to the New Testament. Known collectively as the Radical Reformation, these persecuted groups often advocated a nonviolent ethic, the separation of church and state, and a desire for both personal and corporate holiness. The ideas of these radicals spread through Europe, and over the years the Amish, Mennonites and Anabaptists, and to a lesser degree the Covenanters and Quakers, emerged or were influenced by this movement. ~ David Holdsworth

It was her grandfather who'd told her the tale of this particular violin, over and over, as if the telling could stave off loss, as if the weight and scope of human history were not found in books or in those mythic universities in Rome and Naples that no one in their village had ever seen but, rather, were encoded in objects like this one, a violin touched by hundreds of hands, loved, used, stroked, pressed, made to outlive its owners, storing their secrets and lies ~ Carolina De Robertis

References to all works of art, tombs, tunnels, and architecture in Rome are entirely factual ~ Dan Brown

This is an exception of history, Romania. These are a group of Romans that more than 2000 years ago remained here. They have been contaminated from many different cultures, but the basic language is still the Vulgar Latin that was probably spoken 2000 years ago in Rome, with some integration from the Turkish and Slavic languages. The structure is Latin and they still use some expressions that we use in our dialect in Rome. This was impressive for me and helped me a lot to stay here. ~ Anonymous

If some lose their whole fortunes, they will drag many more down with them ... believe me that the whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in the Forum, is inextricably bound up with the revenues of the Asiatic province. If Those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit will come down with a crash. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

If I'm in Rome for only 48 hours, I would consider it a sin against God to not eat cacio e pepe, the most uniquely Roman of pastas, in some crummy little joint where Romans eat. I'd much rather do that than go to the Vatican. That's Rome to me. ~ Anthony Bourdain

no one tells you rome is ending until you're the last one standing alone in a coliseum where a city had been. ~ Brandon Thomas DiSabatino

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

The plaque the Romans placed above Jesus's head as he writhed in pain - "King of the Jews" - was called a titulus and, despite common perception, was not meant to be sarcastic. Every criminal who hung on a cross received a plaque declaring the specific crime for which he was being executed. Jesus's crime, in the eyes of Rome, was striving for kingly rule (i.e., treason), the same crime for which nearly every other messianic aspirant of the time was killed. ~ Reza Aslan

When exactly did this downward cultural spiral begin, this loss of tact and refinement and understanding that some things should not be said or directly represented? When did we no longer appreciate that to dignify certain modes of behavior, manners, and ways of being with artistic representation was implicitly to glorify and promote them? There is, as Adam Smith said, a deal of ruin in a nation: and this truth applies as much to a nation's culture as to its economy. The work of cultural destruction, while often swifter, easier, and more self-conscious than that of construction, is not the work of a moment. Rome wasn't destroyed in a day. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

Rome was not built in a day, but it was built everyday. ~ Nana Awere Damoah

When I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but in Milan I do not. Do you also follow the custom of whatever church you attend, if you do not want to give or receive scandal. ~ Saint Ambrose

NOMISMA, MEANING 'COIN', was used by both Greeks and Romans. Our own word 'money' derives, via the French monnaie, from the Latin moneta, meaning the mint, where coins are struck. (In early Rome the mint was situated on the Capitoline Hill in the temple of Juno Moneta.) ~ Norman Davies

(Rome) is a Metropolitan Museum of Art the size of Manhattan, no roof, no display cases, and half a million combustion engines rumbling in the hallways. ~ Anthony Doerr

I always thought I'd live in Paris, Rome, Madrid - at least for a while. It strikes me now that I didn't dream of Zanzibar or Papeete or Tashkent: even my fantasy was cautious, a good girl's fantasy, a blanched almond of a fantasy. Today, even that is enough to clench my fists and curl my toes. In ~ Claire Messud

It is not difficult to pretend that Jesus never lived. The attempt to prove it, however, invariably produces the opposite conclusion. In the Jewish literature of the first century the existence of Jesus is not attested to with any certainty, and in the Greek and Latin literature of the same period there is no evidence for it at all. Of the two passages in his Antiquities in which the Jewish writer Josephus makes incidental mention of Jesus, one was undoubtedly interpolated by Christian copyists. The first pagan witness to His existence is Tacitus, who, during the reign of Trajan in the second decade of the second century A.D., reports in his Annals (XV.44) that the founder of the "Christian" sect (which Nero accused of causing the great fire at Rome) was executed under the government of Tiberius by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. Since ~ Albert Schweitzer

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

Change of plan–," she called to Jonah. "Can you drop us off in Rome?"
"Yo, am I a movie star or a taxi service?" Jonah grumbled from the depths of the script pile.
"Technically, your neither," Hamilton puffed, lifting weights again. "I mean, you're a star and you've made movies... ~ Gordon Korman

They knew of the Vth, my legion, of their skill in battle, of how they had won Antium for Octavian, and then fought against Parthia for Tiberius; they were glad the Vth was not yet on their borders, although concerned that it was camped so close in Moesia. I may have loathed the Vth on principle when I was forced to march in its company, but here it was my legion; the men were my brothers. I caught myself smiling broadly once, or rather, Pantera caught me, and threw me a look that ensured I didn't smile again for the rest of the meal. ~ M.C. Scott

You have not studied the histories of ancient times, and perhaps know not the life that breathes in them; a soul of beauty and wisdom which had penetrated my heart of hearts. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Surrounded and absorbed, we tread like Etruscans on the edge of useless law; we pray to the giver of prayer, we give the cane whistle in ceremony, we swing the heavy silver chain of incense burners. Migration makes new citizens of Rome. ~ Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

History is not a book, arbitrarily divided into chapters, or a drama chopped into separate acts; it has flowed forward. Rome is a continuity, called 'eternal.' What has accumulated in this place acts on everyone, day and night, like an extra climate. ~ Elizabeth Bowen

My dad had a stroke. It's one of those life-changing events. It was right around the time I was turning 40. We were doing 'L.A. Law,' and I got this call that my dad was in Rome and had had a stroke. I want to stress that it wasn't a huge stroke, but it was enough to provide a serious wake-up call. ~ Corbin Bernsen

I will journey to the black heart of a corrupt empire to root out my foes. But Rome wasn't built in a day and it won't be restored by a lone Assassin. I am Ezio Auditore Da Firenze. This is my Brotherhood. ~ Oliver Bowden

You see, however, which is called the Court of Rome, and which neither you nor any man can deny to be more corrupt than any Babylon or Sodom, and quite, as I believe, of a lost, desperate and hopeless impiety. ~ Martin Luther

Rome was not the first state of organized gangsterdom, nor was it the last; but it was the only one that managed to bamboozle posterity into an almost universal admiration. Few rational men admire the Huns, the Nazis or the Soviets; but for centuries, schoolboys have been expected to read Julius Caesar's militaristic drivel ("We inflicted heavy losses upon the enemy, our own casualties being very light") and Cato's revolting incitements to war. They have been led to believe that the Romans had attained an advanced level in the sciences, the arts, law, architecture, engineering and everything else. It is my opinion that the alleged Roman achievements are largely a myth; and I feel it is time for this myth to be debunked a little. What the Romans excelled in was bullying, bludgeoning, butchering and blood baths. Like the Soviet Empire, the Roman Empire enslaved peoples whose cultural level was far above their own. They not only ruthlessly vandalized their countries, but they also looted them, stealing their art treasures, abducting their scientists and copying their technical know-how, which the Romans' barren society was rarely able to improve on. No wonder, then, that Rome was filled with great works of art. But the light of culture which Rome is supposed to have emanated was a borrowed light: borrowed from the Greeks and the other peoples that the Roman militarists had enslaved. ~ Petr Beckmann

It is always easy, as well as agreeable, for the the inferior ranks of mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp and pleasure, which fortune has placed beyond their reach. The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and ignorance. ~ Edward Gibbon

I had the good fortune of living in Rome for seven years, from 1994 to 2001. So, I kind of saw firsthand the impact that Pope John Paul II had on people. ~ Chris Matthews

If you want a symbol of Roman power and strength look no further than the Praetorian or Imperial Guard. We could take this one step further. It was this world of Roman power into which Christ came, in which the Apostles ministered, in which the New Testament authors wrote, and in which Christianity came into being. And to all of those things, Rome stood opposed, violently opposed. ~ Stephen Nichols

Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare. ~ Anthony Burgess

As long as the Coliseum stands, Rome shall stand; when the Coliseum falls, Rome will fall; when Rome falls, the whole world will fall. ~ Venerable Bede

Our Catholic church here split into three pieces: (1) the American Catholic Church whose new Rome is Cicero, Illinois; (2) the Dutch schismatics who believe in relevance but not God; (3) the Roman Catholic remnant, a tiny scattered flock with no place to go. The American Catholic Church, which emphasizes property rights and the integrity of neighborhoods, retained the Latin mass and plays The Star-Spangled Banner at the elevation. ~ Walker Percy

This conversation revealed to Odo a third conception of the religious idea. In Piedmont religion imposed itself as a military discipline, the enforced duty of the Christian citizen to the heavenly state; to the Duke it was a means of purchasing spiritual immunity from the consequences of bodily weakness; to the Bishop, it replaced the panem et circenses of ancient Rome. Where, in all this, was the share of those whom Christ had come to save? Where was Saint Francis's devotion to his heavenly bride, the Lady Poverty? Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down ~ Edith Wharton

Fear of God is thrown away," lamented Brigitta in Rome, "and in its place is a bottomless bag of money." All the Ten Commandments, she said, had been reduced to one: "Bring hither the money. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

The blue night with trees
Everything told me to feel something

And yet everything you said was a lie
And all my emotions were for nothing ~ Dorothea Lasky

But cheating has always been the purview of fairies, and as we are about to enter their domain, we ought to act in accordance with local customs. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Rome was an evolutionary society, not a revolutionary one. Constitutional crises tended to lead not to the abolition of previous arrangements but to the accretion of new layers of governance. ~ Anthony Everitt

And now the measure of my song is done:
The work has reached its end; the book is mine,
None shall unwrite these words: nor angry Jove,
Nor war, nor fire, nor flood,
Nor venomous time that eats our lives away.
Then let that morning come, as come it will,
When this disguise I carry shall be no more,
And all the treacherous years of life undone,
And yet my name shall rise to heavenly music,
The deathless music of the circling stars.
As long as Rome is the Eternal City
These lines shall echo from the lips of men,
As long as poetry speaks truth on earth,
That immortality is mine to wear. ~ Ovid

If you set your story in Rome, Ireland or Sheboygan, for that matter, go there. If you're broke, set it in the town where you live, or where you grew up. ~ Lynn Flewelling

I loved every place I lived and traveled. London, Paris, Rome, Venice. I fell hard for Central America and Mexico. In each country, I had fantasies that I could live there. ~ Frances Mayes

A great city, whose image dwells in the memory of man, is the type of some great idea. Rome represents conquest; Faith hovers over the towers of Jerusalem; and Athens embodies the pre-eminent quality of the antique world, Art. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

Before the troops left Rome, the consul Varro made a number of extremely arrogant speeches. The nobles, he complained, were directly responsible for the war on Italian soil, and it would continue to prey upon the country's vitals if there were any more commanders on the Fabian model. He himself, on the contrary, would bring it to an end on the day he first caught sight of the enemy. His colleague Paullus spoke only once before the army marched, and in words which though true were hardly popular. His only harsh criticism of Varro was to express his surprise about how any army commander, while still at Rome, in his civilian clothes, could possibly know what his task on the field of battle would be, before he had become acquainted either with his own troops or the enemy's or had any idea of the lie and nature of the country where he was to operate--or how he could prophesy exactly when a pitched battle would occur. As for himself, he refused to recommend any sort of policy prematurely; for policy was moulded by circumstance, not circumstance by policy. . . . [T]o strengthen [Paullus'] determination Fabius (we are told) spoke to him at his departure in the following words.

'If, Lucius Aemilius, you were like your colleague, or if--which I should much prefer--you had a colleague like yourself, anything I could now say would be superfluous. Two good consuls would serve the country well in virtue of their own sense of honour, without any words from me; and two bad consuls ~ Livy

Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t' expel the winter's flaw! ~ William Shakespeare

Here I am
leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome
burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack,
my silent night, just mash your lips against me.
We are all going forward. None of us are going back. ~ Richard Siken

It's all very nice for Christians, yes? 'Angels' in Rome, 'demons' here. How neat, how tidy for the Western world view, and how wrong. ~ Laini Taylor

The goal of tattooing was never beauty. The goal was change. From the scarified Nubian priests of 2000 B.C., to the tattooed acolytes of the Cybele cult of ancient Rome, to the moko scars of the modern Maori, humans have tattooed themselves as a way of offering up their bodies in partial sacrifice, enduring the physical pain of embellishment and emerging changed beings. Despite ~ Dan Brown

I had chosen the fifteenth day of July, the day that Roman Knights go out crowned with olive wreaths to honor the Twins in a magnificent horseback procession:from the Temple of Mars they ride through the main streets of the City, circling back to the Temple of the Twins, where they offer sacrifices. The ceremony is a commemoration of the battle of Lake Regillus which was fought on that day over three hundred years ago. Castor and Pollux came riding in person to the help of a Roman army that was making a desperate stand on the lake-shore against a superior force of Latins; and ever since then they have been adopted as the particular patrons of the knights. ~ Robert Graves

It is difficult to associate these horrors with the proud civilizations that created them: Sparta, Rome, The Knights of Europe, the Samurai... They worshipped strength, because it is strength that makes all other values possible. Nothing survives without it. Who knows what delicate wonders have died out of the world, for want of the strength to survive. ~ Han From Enter The Dragon

Festus allowed Paul to go to Rome because Paul claimed to be a Roman citizen. Paul was born in Tarsus, a city whose inhabitants had been granted Roman citizenship by Mark Anthony a century earlier. As a citizen, Paul had the right to demand a Roman trial. a Festus, who would serve as governor for an extremely brief and tumultuous period in Jerusalem , seemed happy to grant him one, if for no other reason than simply be rid of him. ~ Reza Aslan

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.

Annabeth," he said hesitantly, "in New Rome, demigods can live their whole lives in peace."
Her expression turned guarded. "Reyna explained it to me. But, Percy, you belong at Camp Half-Blood. That other life - "
"I know," Percy said. "But while I was there, I saw so many demigods living without fear: kids going to college, couples getting married and raising families. There's nothing like that at Camp Half-Blood. I kept thinking about you and me ... and maybe someday when this war with the giants is over ... "
It was hard to tell in the golden light, but he thought Annabeth was blushing. "Oh," she said ...
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just ... I had to think of that to keep going. To give me hope. Forget I mentioned - "
"No!" she said. "Gods, Percy, that's so sweet. ~ Rick Riordan

All roads lead to Rome, but our antagonists think we should choose different paths. ~ Jean De La Fontaine

All it takes for us to be guilty of theft is one misspent hour at work; one item we "forgot" to return from the office; one personal long-distance phone call we made at the company's expense; one overpriced item in our store. We see our sinless Lord, crucified for thieves not unlike the one hanging next to Him. Here was one person who never took what did not belong to Him, and who fulfilled all His obligations and paid debts He did not owe, and yet He hangs here next to a common thief, bearing His shame and guilt before God as though He had committed the crime. The thief crucified next to our Lord may have experienced the wrath of Rome that dark Friday afternoon, but because of the crucifixion of a Man just feet from him, he would not have to endure the wrath of heaven. All thieves who trust in Christ can expect to hear those same words on their death-bed from the spotless Lamb: "Today you shall be with me in Paradise. ~ Michael S. Horton

The three most powerful and most apparent means used by Rome to retain her power over the minds of her votaries are Ignorance, Superstition, and Persecution. ~ Charles Spurgeon

There are more microbes per person than the entire population of the world. Imagine that. Per person. This means that if the time scale is diminished in proportion to that of space it would be quite possible for the whole story of Greece and Rome to be played out between farts. ~ Alan Bennett

Should anyone here in Rome lack finesse at love-making,
Let him
Try me - read my book, and the results are guaranteed!
Technique is the secret. Charioteer, sailor, oarsman,
All need it.
Technique can control
Love himself. ~ Ovid

The science, the art, the jurisprudence, the chief political and social theories, of the modern world have grown out of Greece and Rome - not by favour of, but in the teeth of, the fundamental teachings of early Christianity, to which science, art, and any serious occupation with the things of this world were alike despicable. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

When the ancient Romans would conquer a new place or a new people, they would leave the language and the customs in tact – they would even let the conquered people rule themselves in most cases, appointing a governor to maintain a foothold in the region." Wilson leaned against the whiteboard as he spoke, his posture relaxed, his hands clasped loosely."This was part of what made Rome so successful. They didn't try to make everyone Romans in the process of conquering them. When I went to Africa with the Peace Corp, a woman who worked with the Corp said something to me that I have often thought about since. She told me 'Africa is not going to adapt to you. You are going to have to adapt to Africa.' That is true of wherever you go, whether it's school or whether it's in the broader world. ~ Amy Harmon

If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West: and if Rome still survived, she survived the loss of freedom, of virtue, and of honour. ~ Edward Gibbon

Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones;
Who, though they cannot answer my distress,
Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes,
For that they will not intercept my tale:
When I do weep, they humbly at my feet
Receive my tears and seem to weep with me;
And, were they but attired in grave weeds,
Rome could afford no tribune like to these. ~ William Shakespeare

Artists will sometimes speak of Rome with disparagement or indifference while it is before them; but no artist ewer lived in Rome and then left it, without sighing to return. ~ George Stillman Hillard

One of the accusations made against the Pope is that he did not give a public and obvious denunciation of anti-Semitism during the Holocaust. It's a valid issue but one that is often discussed with too little understanding of the reality of 1940s Europe. Such explicit condemnations of Nazi anti-Semitism were not really made in London, Washington, or Moscow, but it's always assumed that Rome should somehow have been different, in spite of the fact that the Vatican was surrounded by Nazi or pro-Nazi troops and that millions of Roman Catholics lived under Nazi occupation whereas London, Washington, and even Moscow were relatively cocooned and the latter even comparatively safe. ~ Michael Coren

Oh what would Rome be without a plot? ~ Pope Alexander VI

It is evident that in the period designated as that of the kings, when Rome commenced her career of conquest, she was, for that time and country, a great and wealthy city. ~ Goldwin Smith

If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance; but since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure. ~ Augustus

Go ahead - walk into the propeller. ~ Woody Allen

Now you can build Rome in a day with Cosmic Ordering. ~ Stephen Richards

I felt myself a new species of child. Not a boy (most assuredly) but neither a (mere) girl. That skirt-bound race perpetually moving about serving tea had nothing to do with me.

I had such high hopes, you see.

The boundaries of the world seemed vast. I would visit Rome, Paris, Constantinople. Underground cafés presented in my mind where, crushed against wet walls, a (handsome, generous) friend and I sat discussing - many things. Deep things, new ideas. Strange green lights shone in the streets, the sea lapped nearby against greasy tilted moorings; there was trouble afoot, a revolution, into which my friend and I must - Well, as is often the case, my hopes were…not realized. ~ George Saunders

Caesar gave the ultimate definition of ambition when he said: 'Better to be the chief of a village than a subaltern in Rome'. ~ Fernando Pessoa

(2002) In Rome, month upon month, I struggled with how to structure the book about my father (He already had the water, he just had to discover jars). At one point I laid each chapter out on the terrazzo floor, eighty-three in all, arranged them like the map of an imaginary city. Some of the piles of paper, I imagined, were freestanding buildings, some were clustered into neighborhoods, and some were open space. On the outskirts, of course, were the tenements
abandoned, ramshackled. The spaces between the piles were the roads, the alleyways, the footpaths, the rivers. The bridges to other neighborhoods, the bridges out ... In this way I could get a sense if one could find their way through the book, if the map I was creating made sense, if it was a place one would want to spend some time in. If one could wander there, if one could get lost. ~ Nick Flynn

I close my eyes, rub my thumb against the bridge of my nose to ward off the headache. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day. ~ Jodi Picoult

Islam invaded Europe twice from the Mediterranean - first in Iberia, the second time in southeastern Europe, as well as nibbling at Sicily and elsewhere. Christianity invaded Islam multiple times, the first time in the Crusades and in the battle to expel the Muslims from Iberia. Then it forced the Turks back from central Europe. The Christians finally crossed the Mediterranean in the 19th century, taking control of large parts of North Africa. Each of these two religions wanted to dominate the other. Each seemed close to its goal. Neither was successful. What remains true is that Islam and Christianity were obsessed with each other from the first encounter. Like Rome and Egypt they traded with each other and made war on each other. ~ George Friedman

We rich nations, for that is what we are, have an obligation not only to the poor nations, but to all the grandchildren of the world, rich and poor. We have not inherited this earth from our parents to do with it what we will. We have borrowed it from our children and we must be careful to use it in their interests as well as our own. Anyone who fails to recognise the basic validity of the proposition put in different ways by increasing numbers of writers, from Malthus to The Club of Rome, is either ignorant, a fool, or evil. ~ Moss Cass

The big bankers of the world, who practise the terrorism of money, are more powerful than kings and field marshals, even more than the Pope of Rome himself. They never dirty their hands. They kill no-one: they limit themselves to applauding the show. ~ Eduardo Galeano

The city of Rome is called the "city of seven hills" and the Vatican is located within its confinement. These are the hills: Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Aventine, Esquiline, Viminal, and Caelian. ~ Robert Rite

There are things you want to say but don't
There are things I want to say but I already said them
A year ago or two or five, when we first met
There were times I thought you knew I loved you
You never knew
We never were
I died
You died
That's it ~ Dorothea Lasky

But if my forces are not enough, I am hardly the one to relent, I'll plead for the help I need, wherever it may be - if I cannot sway the heavens, I'll wake the powers of hell! ~ Virgil

America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub. ~ C. Wright Mills

I was born in London and raised in Rome until I was 4. Then we went back to London, where I went to school. ~ Naomi Campbell

The time was ordinary, 24 seconds, but the victory was historic. From that crowded little red house in Clarksville, out of an extended family of twenty-two kids, from a childhood of illness and leg braces, out of a small historically black college that had no scholarships, from a country where she could be hailed as a heroine and yet denied lunch at a counter, Skeeter had become golden, sweeping the sprints in Rome. ~ David Maraniss

Remember these Romans, Hannibal. For the time being, we must ally with them. But the day will come when we will have our vengeance upon them, as we will upon the demons of Harappa. Never forget that."

The boy's voice was grave. "I'll remember. ~ Jennifer McKeithen

As the profoundest philosophy of ancient Rome and Greece lighted her taper at Israel's altar, so the sweetest strains of the pagan muse were swept from harps attuned on Zion's hill. ~ Edward Thomson

Just give us until Rome."
The tears escaped.
"Just give us until Rome, Melanie. ~ T.M. Williams

All roads indeed lead to Rome, but theirs also is a more mystical destination, some bourne of which no traveller knows the name, some city, they all seem to hint, even more eternal. ~ Richard Le Gallienne

Can you remember, Acte ... how much easier our belief in Nero made life for us in the old days? And can you remember the paralysis, the numbness that seized the whole world when Nero died? Didn't you feel as if the world had grown bare and colorless all of a sudden? Those people on the Palatine have tried to steal our Nero from us, from you and me. Isn't splendid to think that we can show them they haven't succeeded? They have smashed his statues into splinters, erased his name from all the inscriptions, they even replaced his head on that huge statue in Rome with the peasant head of old Vespasian. Isn't it fine to teach them that all that hasn't been of the slightest use? Granted that they have been successful for a few years. For a few years they have actually managed to banish all imagination from the world, all enthusiasm, extravagance, everything that makes life worth living. But now, with our Nero, all these things are back again. ~ Lion Feuchtwanger

All roads lead to Rome; which is one reason why many people never get there. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I'm the son of Jupiter!" he shouted, and just for effect, he summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. "I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion. ~ Rick Riordan