Emperor Quotes - Page 9

• Rome ... at its most decadent, had never thought of hiring an actor to go through the motions of being an emperor while the Praetorian Guard ruled.

  Gore Vidal

  Rome, Political, Actors

  Gore Vidal (1998). “The American presidency”, Common Courage Pr

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• Crown and cloth maken no priest, nor emperor's bishop with his words, but power that crist giveth; and thus by life have been priests known.

  John Wycliffe

  Bishops, Crowns, Priests

  "Typical English Churchmen". Book by John Neville Figgis, p. 15, 1909.

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• But this inestimable privilege was soon violated: with the knowledge of truth the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution; and the sects which dissented from the catholic church were afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed to dispute his opinions or to oppose his commands, were guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy; and that a seasonable application of moderate severities might save those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting condemnation.

  Edward Gibbon

  Men, History, Catholic

  Edward Gibbon (1837). “The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire”, p.292

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• If the emperor had capriciously decreed the death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen of the republic, the cruel order would have been executed without hesitation by the ministers of open violence or of specious injustice. The caution, the delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded in the condemnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered to the world that the privileges of the church had already revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman government.

  Edward Gibbon

  Order, Punishment, Government

  Edward Gibbon (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Edward Gibbon (Illustrated)”, p.908, Delphi Classics

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• The emperor of the East was no longer guided by the wisdom and authority of his elder brother, whose death happened towards the end of the preceding year: and, as the distressful situation of the Goths required an instant and peremptory decision, he was deprived of the favourite resource of feeble and timid minds; who consider the use of dilatory and ambiguous measures as the most admirable efforts of consummate prudence.

  Edward Gibbon

  Brother, Years, History

  Edward Gibbon (2008). “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, p.94, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If you put together all the Christians in the world, with their Emperors and their Kings, the whole of these Christians, - aye, and throw in the Saracens to boot, - would not have such power, or be able to do so much as this Kublai, who is Lord of all the Tartars in the world.

  Marco Polo

  Christian, Kings, Together

  Marco Polo, William Marsden (1926). “The travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian”, Doubleday

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• The greater the privilege, the more hidden the arrogance. The Emperor of China need not exist.

  Mason Cooley

  Arrogance, Needs, Privilege

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• Where are the numerous constructions erected by Agrippa, of which only the Pantheon remains? Where are the splendorous palaces of the emperors?

  Petrarch

  Palaces, Construction, Pantheon

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• Processions, cavalcades, and all that fund of gay frippery, furnished out by tailors, barbers, and tire-women, mechanically influence the mind into veneration; an emperor in his nightcap would not meet with half the respect of an emperor with a crown.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Gay, Mind, Half

  Oliver Goldsmith (1820). “Miscellaneous Works: To which is Prefixed Some Account of His Life and Writings”, p.405

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• I am the emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs.

  Wilhelm II

  Food, Cooking, Germany

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• The worst way to defend our freedom is to let our leaders start taking away our freedoms! It is exactly during times like these [a national crisis] that we need more freedom of speech, a strong and critical press, and a citizenry that is not afraid to stand up and say that the emperor has no clothes.

  Michael Moore

  Strong, Freedom, Clothes

  Michael Moore (2004). “Stupid White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!”

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• That conceit, elegantly expressed by the Emperor Charles V., in his instructions to the King, his son, "that fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman, that if she be too much wooed she is the farther off.

  Francis Bacon

  Kings, Son, Too Much

  Francis Bacon (2010). “Bacon's Advancement of Learning and the New Atlantis”, p.215, Lulu.com

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• I would like to say that I have software that allows me to model worlds to a high degree of scientific plausibility. I'd also like to be six foot two and fifteen years into my reign as Emperor of Europa. The simple truth is that past the character's name and a long history of making my own body cover distances, I did very little in the way of targeted research.

  Robert Reed

  Distance, Character, Past

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• One of the things that I've learned, and I think we've all learned, is that we are not going to get the kind of decisive, permanent victories in this fight against terrorism that we would get from fighting another country. We're not going to get that MacArthur/Emperor moment, because by definition, even after decimating Al Qaeda in the Fata, even after taking out [Osama] bin Laden there's still people there who have both the interest and the capacity if we don't maintain vigilance to strike against the United States.

  Barack Obama

  Country, Fighting, Thinking

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• Taj Mahal was built up by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, who wanted his beloved wife to be remembered by one and all, with help of architectural geniuses like Ustad Isa, Isa Mohammad Effendi and Puru of Persia. The result that came across was a fine piece of Mughal architecture, fused with Persian, Islamic, and Indian architectural styles; or is believed so by many.

  Unknown

  Islamic, Wife, Style

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• Tacitus appears to have been as great an enthusiast as Petrarch for the revival of the republic and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies against them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most atrocious cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely be practised upon a virtuous and wise people.

  John Adams

  Wise, People, Republic

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1851). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.422

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• In 325 A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to unify Rome under a single religion ... Historians still marvel at the brilliance with which Constantine converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagan symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties.

  Dan Brown

  Christian, Party, Rome

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• Whoever wrote Shakespeare is a working class hero be he an aristocrat or a peasant. Shakespeare is a great leveler. We're presented with kings, queens, emperors and giants who feel the same things as everyone else: jealousy, love, anger, bitterness, grief, loss.

  Rhys Ifans

  Kings, Queens, Grief

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• The bureaucratic manager, the consuming aesthete, the therapist, the protester and their numerous kindred occupy almost all the available culturally recognizable roles, the notions of the expertise of the few and of the moral agency of everyone are the presuppositions of the dramas which those characters enact. To cry out that the emperor had no clothes on was at least to pick on one man only to the amusement of everyone else; to declare that almost everyone is dressed in rags is much less likely to be popular.

  Alasdair MacIntyre

  Drama, Character, Men

  Alasdair MacIntyre (2013). “After Virtue”, p.298, A&C Black

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• Markets are born free, yet no sooner are they born than some would-be emperor is forging chains. Paradoxically, it sometimes happens that the only way to preserve freedom is through judicious controls on the exercise of private power. If we believe in liberty, it must be freedom from both private and public coercion.

  Tim Wu

  Believe, Exercise, Liberty

  Tim Wu (2010). “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires”, p.223, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• Every organization should tolerate rebels who tell the emperor he has no clothes

  Colin Powell

  Organization, Clothes, Rebel

  "The Powell Principles". Book by Oren Harari, 2002.

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• Adrian, the Emperor, exclaimed incessantly, when dying, "That the crowd of physicians had killed him."

  Michel de Montaigne

  Medicine, Dying, Physicians

  "Essays", Book II, Chapter XXXVII, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 502-04, 1922.

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• Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown.

  John Keats

  Night, Voice, Bird

  "Ode to a Nightingale" l. 61 (1820)

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• I do not know whether this universe has an emperor; all I know is that this empire is in chaos; universal order is a big delusion.

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Order, Empires, Chaos

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• The finest plans are always ruined by the littleness of those who ought to carry them out, for emperor himself can actually be nothing.

  Bertolt Brecht

  Finest, Ruined, Plans

  'Mutter Courage' (1939) sc. 6

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