Empires Quotes - Page 12

• In order to save the 40,000,000 inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, we colonial statesmen must acquire new lands to settle the surplus population, to provide new markets. [...] The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question.

  Cecil Rhodes

  Country, War, Order

  "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism". Essay by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, www.marxists.org. 1917.

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• 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

  Ignorance, Reality, Thinking

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• Sleep is a state in which a great part of every life is passed. No animal has yet been discovered, whose existence is not varied with intervals of insensibility; and some late philosophers have extended the empire of sleep over the vegetable world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sleep, Animal, Vegetables

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

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• Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.

  Samuel Johnson

  Focus, Gold, Splendor

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• We Poor Cousins don’t care at all though, except for when we’re on welfare, broke, starving, unable to buy cool high-tops for our children or pay for their university tuition or purchase massive fourth homes on private islands with helicopter landing pads. But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build empires with that, gentlemen.

  Miriam Toews

  Girl, Cousin, Children

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• The Maharishi had invited us all to go to India to his ashram in the Indian Himalaya. We were there studying meditation for two and a half months. While the other three Beatles went back to London to start the beginning of their Apple empire, George and I went to Madras for a week’s relaxation. I took this photograph of George one morning, as I thought the light on his face was lovely. I think this was the last time that I saw him looking so calm.

  Pattie Boyd

  Morning, Thinking, Light

  "Former Beatle and Clapton wife looks back with love" by Todd Leopold, edition.cnn.com. February 14, 2015.

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• The Australian sees itself not as a mere newspaper, but as a player in the game of national politics, calling upon the vast resources of the Murdoch empire and the millions of words it has available to it to try to make and unmake governments.

  Robert Manne

  Player, Government, Games

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• Empires fall, ids explode, great symphonies are written, and behind all of it is a single instinct that demands satisfaction.

  Sherwin B. Nuland

  Fall, Symphony, Demand

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• The gospel is fiction when judged by the empire, but the empire is fiction when judged by the gospel.

  Walter Brueggemann

  Fiction, Judged

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• For harmony makes small states great, while discord undermines the mightiest empires.

  Sallust

  Harmony, States, Discord

  Sallust (1921). “Sallust”

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• All empires become arrogant. It is their nature.

  Edward Rutherfurd

  Arrogant

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• We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire. If you ask when, the answer is that you cannot make a single stroke between day and night: the precise moment does not matter. There was no painted sign to say: 'You are now entering Imperium.' Yet it was a very old road and the voice of history was saying: 'Whether you know it or not, the act of crossing may be irreversible.' And now, not far ahead, is a sign that reads: 'No U-turns.'

  Garet Garrett

  Lying, Night, Voice

  Garet Garrett (1961). “Rise of Empire”

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• Between government in the republican meaning, that is, Constitutional, representative, limited government, on the one hand, and Empire on the other hand, there is mortal enmity.

  Garet Garrett

  Government, Hands, People

  "The people's pottage".

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• May our land be a land of liberty, the seat of virtue, the asylum of the oppressed, a name and a praise in the whole Earth, until the last shock of time shall bury the empires of the whole world in one common undistinguished ruin!

  Joseph Warren

  Land, Names, Liberty

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• The story of the fifth century was one of the exploitation of imperial weakness. Thus the Western Empire died.

  Adrian Goldsworthy

  Weakness, Stories, Century

  Adrian Goldsworthy (2009). “The Fall Of The West: The Death Of The Roman Superpower”, p.178, Hachette UK

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• And now, what has Anarchism to say to all this, this bankruptcy of republicanism, this modern empire that has grown up on the ruins of our early freedom? We say this, that the sin our fathers sinned was that they did not trust liberty wholly. They thought it possible to compromise between liberty and government, believing the latter to be 'a necessary evil,' and the moment the compromise was made, the whole misbegotten monster of our present tyranny began to grow. Instruments which are set up to safeguard rights become the very whip with which the free are struck.

  Voltairine de Cleyre

  Father, Believe, Rights

  Voltairine de Cleyre (2012). “Exquisite Rebel: The Essays of Voltairine de Cleyre -- Anarchist, Feminist, Genius”, p.99, SUNY Press

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• Confession: When I went to see The Empire Strikes Back I found myself glancing at my watch. The Force is with us, indeed, and a lot of it is hot air. It's a measure of my mixed feelings about The Empire Strikes Back that I'm not at all sure that I understand the plot. The Empire Strikes Back is about as personal as a Christmas card from a bank.

  Vincent Canby

  Air, Feelings, Christmas Card

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• In the space of seven years I have succeeded in accomplishing a great work and uniting the whole world in one Empire.

  Genghis Khan

  Years, Space, World

  "The Tyrants: 2500 Years of Absolute Power and Corruption". Book by Clive Foss, p. 55, 2006.

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• 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

  Break Up, Atoms, Elements

  Edward Everett (1850). “Orations and Speeches on Various Occasions”, p.655, Рипол Классик

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• In 1491 the Inka ruled the greatest empire on earth. Bigger than Ming Dynasty China, bigger than Ivan the Great’s expanding Russia, bigger than Songhay in the Sahel or powerful Great Zimbabwe in the West Africa tablelands, bigger than the cresting Ottoman Empire, bigger than the Triple Alliance (as the Aztec empire is more precisely known), bigger by far than any European state, the Inka dominion extended over a staggering thirty-two degrees of latitude—as if a single power held sway from St. Petersburg to Cairo.

  Charles C. Mann

  Powerful, Russia, Aztec

  Charles C. Mann (2006). “1491 (Second Edition): New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus”, p.74, Vintage

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• During our long period of slumber the United States government has lost its moral authority. It is owned, operated, and controlled by Wall Street, Corporate America, and the Israeli Lobby with the full complicity of the national media. The United States has become ungovernable, unfixable, and, therefore, unsustainable economically, politically, militarily, and environmentally. It has evolved into the wealthiest, most powerful, most materialistic, most racist, most militaristic, most violent empire of all times.

  Thomas Naylor

  Powerful, Wall, America

  "Thomas H. Naylor on Leviathan, Secession and Vermont's Small Nation Dream". Interview with Anthony Wile, www.thedailybell.com. May 13, 2012.

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• In other words, the problem of empire-building is essentially mystical. It must somehow foster the impression that a man is great in the degree that his nation is great; that a German as such is superior to a Belgian as such; an Englishman, to an Irishman; an American, to a Mexican: merely because the first-named countries are in each case more powerful than their comparatives. And people who have no individual stature whatever are willing to accept this poisonous nonsense because it gives them a sense of importance without the trouble of any personal effort.

  Felix Morley

  Country, Powerful, Men

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• There's a weird fact that if you dropped a penny off the Empire State Building in New York City, you'd kill someone. I feel really bad, 'cause I dropped a nickel off it once.

  Taylor Hanson

  New York, Cities, Pennies

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• If I had my own world I'd build you an empire from here to the far lands to spread love like violence!

  Tom DeLonge

  Land, World, Violence

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• The great proliferation of museums in the nineteenth century was a product of the marriage of the exhibition as a way of awakening intelligent interest in the visitor with the growth of collections that was associated with empire and middle-class affluence. Attendance at museums was as much associated with moral improvement as with explanation of the human or natural world.

  Richard Fortey

  Intelligent, Class, Museums

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