Ancient Rome Quotes

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

  Augustus

  Latin, Rome, Cities

  "The Twelve Caesars" by Suetonius, August 28, 2013.

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• Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.

  Arthur Erickson

  Rome, Expansion, World

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  If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

  Julius Caesar

  Military, Bad Ass, Law

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• Silent enim leges inter arma (Laws are silent in times of war).

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  War, Latin, Rome

  Pro Milone ch. 11

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• If we were living in ancient Rome or Greece, I would be considered sickly and unattractive. The times dictate that thin is better for some strange reason, which I think is foolish.

  Gwyneth Paltrow

  Thinking, Rome, Would Be

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• Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

  Will Rogers

  Government, Rome, House

  "Dreams Come Due: Government and Economics as If Freedom Mattered". Book by John Galt, p. 235, 1986.

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• But, ancient Greece and ancient Rome - people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings back then, OK? People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Believe, Creativity, Rome

  "Do All Of Us Possess Genius?". Interview with Alison Stewart, www.npr.org. May 25, 2012.

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• Internationally, ancient Rome and Greece cultures are just so fascinating. I don't think audiences will ever tire of it, because it's such an advanced society.

  Jeremy Bolt

  Thinking, Rome, Culture

  Source: collider.com

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• A bad peace is even worse than war.

  Tacitus

  Peace, War, Ubuntu

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• And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods?

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  God, Father, Men

  Thomas Babbington Macaulay, “Horatius”

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• It is a sweet and seemly thing to die for one's country.

  Horace

  Country, Sweet, Patriotic

  Horace (1908). “Horace: Quintus Horatius Flaccus ... the Roman Poet Presented to Modern Readers”

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• The old Lie:Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

  Wilfred Owen

  War, Lying, Latin

  "Dulce et Decorum Est" l. 21 (written 1918) See Horace 20

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• Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

  Winston Churchill

  Strong, Queens, Fall

  "The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan (Volume II)". Book by Winston Churchill, 1899.

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• It was stone carvers in ancient Rome, scribes in the Middle Ages, all the way through Gutenberg to the present day. That's a pretty long track record. More likely we may reach a point where each one of us is a typographer with our own custom proprietary typeface.

  Michael Bierut

  Rome, Long, Track

  Source: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

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• My mother's father taught English literature. When I was about ten or eleven, I could recite Macaulay's 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' While other kids were playing pedestrian war games, I'd be Horatius keeping the bridge.

  Bernie Taupin

  Mother, Father, War

  "Bernie Taupin: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. January 2, 2012.

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• Football is controlled violence, but it is violence, which people have loved to watch since the gladiatorial contests in ancient Rome.

  Michael Mandelbaum

  Football, Rome, People

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• And here we encounter the seeds of government disaster and collapse - the kind that wrecked ancient Rome and every other civilization that allowed a sociopolitical monster called the welfare state to exist.

  Barry Goldwater

  Government, Rome, Civilization

  Barry Morris Goldwater (1976). “The coming breakpoint”, Not Avail

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• I write about times and places I would visit in a time machine, like ancient Rome or the Wild West.

  Caroline Lawrence

  Writing, Rome, Machines

  "Top writing tips: Caroline Lawrence" by Caroline Lawrence, www.theguardian.com. March 1, 2012.

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• War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.

  Arthur Helps

  Kings, War, Rome

  Sir Arthur Helps (1883). “Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd”

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• It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.

  Edward Gibbon

  Sex, Rome, Numbers

  Edward Gibbon (1854). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.187

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• 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

  Bible, Philosophy, Zion

  Edward Thomson (1856). “Essays, moral and religious”, p.35

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• Ancient Rome was a violent place.

  James Purefoy

  Rome, Ancient, Violent

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• 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

  Knowledge, Science, Rome

  Richard Kirwan (1799). “Geological essays”, p.5

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• No slave system has ever been able to continue to function on the slaves provided by its own biological reproduction because the rate of human reproduction is too slow and the expense from infant mortality and years of unproductive upkeep of the young make this prohibitively expensive. This relationship is one of the basic causes of the American Civil War, and was even more significant in destroying ancient Rome.

  Carroll Quigley

  War, Years, Rome

  Carroll Quigley (1979). “The evolution of civilizations: an introduction to historical analysis”, Liberty Fund Inc.

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• [In ancient Rome,] why did the senate after killing Caesar turn around and give the government to his nephew? Why did France after they got rid of the king and that whole system turn around and give it to Napoleon? It's the same thing with Germany and Hitler.

  George Lucas

  Kings, Government, Rome

  "'Sith' Invites Bush Comparisons" by Ellen Crean, www.cbsnews.com. May 16, 2005.

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