Empires Quotes - Page 4

• The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.

  John Lothrop Motley

  Liberty, Splendid, Graves

  John Lothrop Motley (1863). “The Rise of the Dutch Republic: Complete in One Volume”, p.5

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• Your real self - the I am I - is master of this land, the ruler of this empire. You rightfully have power and dominion over it, all its inhabitants, and all contained in its realm.

  Robert Collier

  Life, Real, Self

  Robert Collier (2013). “Riches Within Your Reach”, p.252, Simon and Schuster

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• You really struggle to be a successful empire if you are also the world's biggest debtor.

  Niall Ferguson

  Struggle, Successful, Debtors

  "Imperial Denial". Interview with Nonna Gorilovskaya, www.motherjones.com. May 21, 2004.

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• A single word has sometimes lost or won an empire.

  Cardinal Richelieu

  Sometimes, Lost, Single Word

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• America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

  George W. Bush

  Ambition, Patriotic, Men

  Third Presidential State of the Union Address, delivered 20 January 2004

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• Canada evolved within the British Empire: it inherited the Parliamentary system, the Cabinet system and all the other features of the British constitutional system which had been in place, for the most part, for several centuries before Canada was even thought of.

  Stockwell Day

  Canada, Cabinets, Century

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• You all know the reasons which have impelled me to renounce the throne. But I want you to understand that in making up my mind I did not forget the country or the empire, which, as Prince of Wales and lately as King, I have for twenty-five years tried to serve.

  King Edward VIII

  Country, Kings, Years

  Broadcast, 11 Dec. 1936, in The Times 12 Dec. 1936

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• My birth neither shook the German Empire nor caused much of an upheaval in the home. It pleased mother, caused father a certain amount of pride and my elder brother the usual fraternal jealousy of a hitherto only son.

  Conrad Veidt

  Jealousy, Mother, Brother

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• However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.

  Neville Chamberlain

  Powerful, Military, War

  "Deal or dud: How will history judge Iran agreement?" by Tim Lister, www.cnn.com. November 25, 2013.

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• The britishh seizure of Hong Kong was an aspect of one of the most ugly crimes of the britishh Empire: the takeover and destruction of India, and the use of India to flood China with opium.

  Robert Trout

  India, Use, Ugly

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• There rise her timeless capitals of empires daily born, whose plinths are laid at midnight and whose streets are packed at morn; and here come tired youths and maids that feign to love or sin in tones like rusty razor blades to tunes like smitten tin.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Love, Tired, Hollywood

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• Come back with your shield - or on it

  Plutarch

  Greek, Sparta, Shields

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• In recent times, European nations, with the use of gunpowder and other technical improvements in warfare, controlled practically the whole world. One, the British Empire, brought under one government a quarter of the earth and its inhabitants.

  John Boyd Orr

  Government, Gunpowder, Warfare

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• All comparisons between America's current place in the world and anything legitimately called an empire in the past reveal ignorance and confusion about any reasonable meaning of the concept empire, especially the comparison with the Roman Empire.

  Donald Kagan

  Ignorance, Past, America

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• The only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes. It seems to have favored the exploitation of human beings rather than their enlightenment.

  Claude Levi-Strauss

  Writing, Class, Cities

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• It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn't hear the barbarians coming.

  Garrison Keillor

  Air, Luxury, Barbarians

  "Simpson's Contemporary Quotations". Book by James B. Simpson, p. 211, 1988.

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• The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction. All nations and all empires first felt decadence gnawing at them when their birth rate fell off.

  Benito Mussolini

  Fate, Birth Rate, Firsts

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• The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

  Voltaire

  Holy, Roman Civilization, Roman Empire

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• The necessity of every one paying in his own labor for what he consumes, affords the only legitimate and effectual check to excessive luxury, which has so often ruined individuals, states and empires; and which has now brought almost universal bankruptcy upon us.

  Josiah Warren

  Luxury, Individual, Checks

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• You are my lover and I am your mistress and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination.

  Violet Trefusis

  Love, Government, Mistress

  Violet Keppel Trefusis, Mitchell Alexander Leaska (1991). “Violet to Vita: the letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, 1910-21”, Viking Adult

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• The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it - The Territory is worth. Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little timely pruning.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Time, Cost, Pruning

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• Berkeley hackers liked to see themselves as rebels against soulless corporate empires.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Rebel, Hackers, Soulless

  Eric S. Raymond (2001). “The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary”, p.13, "O'Reilly Media, Inc."

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• By now it is evident that the Soviet Union must gain control of Europe to maintain its empire.

  Barbara Amiel

  Europe, Unions, Gains

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• What can we say about a marketing culture that so openly feeds and colludes with obsession? The Disney empire has developed this to an unprecedented degree of professionalism.

  Rowan Williams

  Marketing, Degrees, Culture

  "The new head of the Anglican church ... in his own words" by Stephen Bates, www.theguardian.com. July 25, 2002.

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• ... the reason is that a military defeat of Britain will bring about the disintegration of the British Empire. This would not be of any benefit to Germany.

  Franz Halder

  Military, Historical, Germany

  Franz Halder, Charles Burton Burdick, Hans Adolf Jacobsen (1988). “The Halder war diary, 1939-1942”, Presidio Pr

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