Wasp Empire Quotes

You're not like other Wasps."
"Aren't I?" Aagen smiled, but it was a painful smile. "No doubt you've killed my kinsmen by the score."
"A few," Salma allowed.
"Well, next time you shed my kinden's blood, think on this: we are but men, no less nor more than other men, and we strive and feel joy and fail as men have always done. We live in the darkness that is the birthright of us all, that of hurt and ignorance, only sometimes ... sometimes there comes the sun." He let the bowl fall from his fingers to the floor, watching it spin and settle, unbroken. ~ Adrian Tchaikovsky

Of Congress, "party disputes and personal quarrels are the great business of the day whilst the momentous concerns of an empire ... are but secondary considerations," that "business of a trifling nature and personal concernment withdraws their attention from matters of great national moment. ~ George Washington

I bit Tiger Lily, as hard as I could. I don't know how I thought it would help. Fairie bites are worse than wasp stings - they pierce and burn and ache all at the same time. As best, I knew, I'd be swatted away, and at worst she might crush me by accident in her reaction to the pain. But what happened was worse. She didn't seem to notice it at all. It was like Tiger Lily herself wasn't even really there. ~ Jodi Lynn Anderson

Even after the Hellenistic empire of Alexander's
successors was supplanted by that of the Latin-speaking Romans, the usual linguistic
development – the language of the empire imposing itself on cultural
activities – did not take place, and even philosophers whose mother tongue was
not Greek did philosophy not in Latin but in Greek. ~ Dimitri Gutas

Look at the past - empire succeeding empire - and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events. Which is why observing life for forty years is as good as a thousand. Would you really see anything new? ~ Marcus Aurelius

I've worked with a lot of gay and lesbian organizations. I sit on the board of the Empire State Pride Agenda. I've also done a lot of work for Broadway Care/Equity Fights AIDS. I think it's important because, when we can be of service to others, it only enhances our lives. I've been helped a lot in my life. ~ Billy Porter

The frequent repetition of miracles serves to provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind ... ~ Edward Gibbon

The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire; for it is the most underling tradesmen only who make it a rule to employ chiefly their own customers. A great trader purchases his good always where they are cheapest and best, without regard to any little interest of this kind. ~ Adam Smith

During the first six years of my life, Hungary was one of the most important components of the Habsburg dynasty's vast Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after World War I it became an independent national entity. ~ Georg Solti

The fact is remarkable, that though education in its higher degrees is popularly neglected in Siam, there is scarcely a man or woman in the empire who cannot read and write. ~ Anna Leonowens

In the end it seems we're just toys, easy to break and hard to mend. ~ Mark Lawrence

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top. ~ Sarah Vowell

The pain became my enemy. More than the Count Renar, more than my father's bartering with lives he should have held more precious than crown, or glory, or Jesu on the cross. ~ Mark Lawrence

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

You do realize that you are addressing the emperor of the Crescent Empire."
"And you are addressing a free woman of the desert. You are not my emperor. Therefore, I am your equal. ~ Sarah Beth Durst

President George Washington's namesake capital, once a marketplace for slave auctions, is now synonymous with democracy and freedom; so is the iconic Jefferson, who wanted to build an "Empire of Liberty" for the world. ~ Patrick Mendis

Just inside the doorway he puts down the bags, motions her to stand by them a minute. He saunters out ahead, carefully casual. Peers up one way, down the other. Nothing. The street's dead to the world.
Then suddenly, from nowhere, ping! Something flicks off the wall just behind him, flops at his feet like a dead bug. He doesn't bend down to look closer, he can tell what kind of a bug it is all right. He's seen that kind of bug before, plenty of times. No flash, no report, to show which direction it came from. Silencer, of course.
He hasn't moved. Fsssh! and a bee or wasp in a hurry strokes by his cheek, tingles, draws a drop of slow blood. Another pokk! from the wall, another bug rolling over. The insect-world seems very streamlined, very self-destructive, tonight. ("Jane Brown's Body") ~ Cornell Woolrich

The German economic historian Fanz Oertel in the 1950s points to another drastic consequence of a slave economy. A slave economy initially allowed an increase of productivity through the invention and use of new machinery. Roman products remained at a simple level and could be reproduced by handicraft. By the fourth century, for example, the robust pottery industry of Greece was in sharp decline because other parts of the empire also learned to make pottery.
"The decline in international trade in the Mediterranean in the fourth century was partly due to increasing piracy, but it was also due to lack of industrial innovation and of need for exchange of manufactured goods. ~ Norman F. Cantor

He was done with politics and intrigue. He loved her, and no empire, no king, and no earthly fear would keep him from her. No, if they tried to take her from him, he'd rip the world apart with his bare hands. And for some reason, that didn't terrify him. ~ Sarah J. Maas

If the English had deep-dish pizza they could have kept their empire. ~ Daniel Pinkwater

Now whenever I watched a Star Wars film, I found myself wondering how the Empire had the technology to make long-distance holographic phone calls between planets light-years apart, and yet no one had figured out how to make a remote-controlled TIE Fighter or X-Wing yet. ~ Ernest Cline

I shall endeavor to marshal British opinion against a course of action which would bring in my opinion the greatest evils upon the people of India, upon the people of Great Britain and upon the British Empire itself. ~ Winston Churchill

We defend with our lives the petty principles which divide us. The common principle, which is the establishment of the empire of man on earth, we never lift a finger to defend. We are frightened of any urge which would lift us out of the muck. We fight only for the status quo, our particular status quo. We battle with heads down and eyes closed. ~ Henry Miller

[I]n the years that followed the persecutions, Christianity came to see itself, with great pride, as a persecuted Church. Its greatest heroes were not those who did good deeds but those who died in the most painful way. If you were willing to die an excruciating end in the arena then, whatever your previous holiness or lack thereof, you went straight to heaven: martyrdom wiped out all sins on the point of death.
As well as getting there faster, martyrs enjoyed preferential terms in paradise, getting to wear the much-desired martyr's crown. Tempting celestial terms were offered: it was said that the scripture promised 'multiplication, even to a hundred times, of brothers, children, parents, land and homes'. Precisely how this celestial sum had been calculated is not clear but the general principle was: those who died early, publicly and painfully would be best rewarded. In many of the martyr tales the driving force is less that the Romans want to kill – and more that the Christians want to die. Why wouldn't they? Paradoxically, martyrdom held considerable benefits for those willing to take it on. One was its egalitarian entry qualifications. As George Bernard Shaw acidly observed over a millennium later, martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability.
More than that, in a socially and sexually unequal era it was a way in which women and even slaves might shine. Unlike most positions of power in the highly socially stratified late Roman Empire, this ~ Catherine Nixey

But what is to be the fate of the great wen of all? The monster, called, by the silly coxcombs of the press, "the metropolis of the empire"? ~ William Cobbett

In the empire of desert, water is the king and shadow is the queen. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Take heart, sir," Cazaril consoled him. "It is not your destiny today to win a royacy for your son. It is to win an empire for your grandson. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

The fall of the Berlin Wall on 11/9/89 unleashed forces that ultimately liberated all the captive peoples of the Soviet Empire ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Germany collapsed as a result of having engaged in a struggle for empire with the concepts of provincial politics. ~ Albert Camus

I am utterly struck how, 300 years after his execution, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. ~ Peter Jennings

The cutting off of Russia with all its consequences, the vain and sanguinary tragedy of Gallipoli, the diversion of Allied strength in the campaigns of Mesopotamia, Suez, and Palestine, the ultimate breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the subsequent history of the Middle East, followed from the voyage of the Goeben. Other ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

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

We live in an age of apologies. Apologies, fake or true, are expected from the descendants of empire builders, slave owners and persecutors of heretics, and from men who -in our eyes- just got it all wrong. So, with the age of 85 coming up shortly, I want to make an apology. It appears I must apologize for being male, white, and European. ~ Alec Guinness

Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both ... Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire. ~ Zbigniew Brzezinski

And Miss Ophelia?" he asked, getting round to her at last.
"Miss Ophelia? Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, we're all rather worried about her."
Ned recoiled as if a wasp had gone up his nose. "Oh? What's the trouble? Nothing serious, I hope."
"She's gone all green," I said. "I think it's chlorosis. Dr. Darby thinks so too. ~ Alan Bradley

There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary. ~ Karl Marx

Sometimes Vin imagined she was like the ash, or the wind, or the mist itself. A thing without thought, capable of simply being, not thinking, caring, or hurting. Then she could be ... free. ~ Brandon Sanderson

The WASP style was often portrayed on TV and in movies as a sort of archetypical American look, and some of my new friends seemed to subscribe to it. I decided I'd try it too. I'd tried other looks previously, like Glam dude and Amish geezer, so why not this one? ~ David Byrne

Perhaps I just wanted to know what it was that I wanted. Maybe that is all that growing up means. ~ Mark Lawrence

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

Potentially, America is really the greatest, but it's not yet, I don't think. It's too much like an old-fashioned empire, waving the stick and dropping too many bombs on too many people. ~ Robert Wyatt

Just an independent woman,
building my empire from the ground up. ~ Tene Edwards

Sirs, if it were not for that one red spot I would have conquered the world!!! ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Here, the Prophet was born in a settled and stable province of a strong Roman Empire. Much as in our timeline, Islamic civilisation, the dar-al Islam, flourished, but under Roman protection. There were no centuries of inter-faith conflict in Europe – no crusades, for instance. Even in the pre-Christian days, the Romans were always pragmatic about local religions. To the Romans, Islam is a muscular sister creed of the Christianity that is their official state religion. ~ Stephen Baxter

Besides that, his secret - and principal - reason for retiring was to devote himself entirely to his idée fixe, his collection which was becoming ever larger and more complicated. Van Hulle's concern was no longer simply to have beautiful clocks or rare timepieces; his feelings for them were not simply those one has for inanimate objects. True, their outward appearance was still important, their craftsmanship, their mechanisms, heir value as works of art, but the fact that he had collected so many was for a different reason entirely. It was a result of his strange preoccupation with the exact time. It was no longer enough for him that they were interesting. He was irritated by the differences in time they showed. Above all when they struck the hours and the quarters. One, very old, was deranged and got confused in keeping count of the passage of time, which it had been doing for so long. Others were behind, little Empire clocks with children's voices almost, as if they had not quite grown up. In short, the clocks were always at variance. They seemed to be running after each other, calling out, getting lost, looking for each other at all the changing crossroads of time. ~ Georges Rodenbach

In the end the secrecy of your revolt poisons you like a secret disease. Your whole life is a life of lies. Year after year you sit in Kipling-haunted little Clubs, whisky to right of you, Pink'un to left of you, listening and eagerly agreeing while Colonel Bodger develops his theory that these bloody Nationalists should be boiled in oil. You hear your Oriental friends called 'greasy Little babus', and you admit, dutifully, that they are greasy little babus. You see louts fresh from school kicking grey-haired servants. The time comes when you burn with hatred of your own countrymen, when you long for a native rising to drown their Empire in blood. And in this there is nothing honourable, hardly even any sincerity. For, au fond, what do you care if the Indian Empire is a despotism, if Indians are bullied and exploited? You only care because the right of free speech is denied you. You are a creature of the despotism, a pukka sahib, tied tighter than a monk or a savage by an unbreakable system of taboos. ~ George Orwell

The Services offer the cleanest and most natural support to an aggressive foreign policy; expansion of the empire appeals powerfully to the aristocracy and the professional classes by offering new and ever-growing fields for the honorable and profitable employment of their sons. ~ J.A. Hobson

The collapsing of an empire. This changing word moves inexorably on. Thoughts bubble and the stiller the mind the more palpable the dazzling torrent of life becomes. ~ Stephen Batchelor

A man does not automatically become a public figure because he happens to build an empire out of chicken fat. ~ James Pinckney Miller

Until Americans stop getting distracted by the Republicans v/s Democrats melodrama, America will move forward towards war, empire & eventually collapse. ~ Ziad K. Abdelnour