Empires Quotes

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  The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Government, Hands, People

  Woodrow Wilson, Ronald J. Pestritto (2005). “Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings”, p.117, Lexington Books

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• The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

  Winston Churchill

  Inspirational, Life, Inspiring

  Speech at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 6 Sept. 1943

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• Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

  Marcus Aurelius

  War, Philosophical, Future

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• The difference between a republic and an empire is the loyalty of one's army

  Julius Caesar

  Loyalty, Army, Differences

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• All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.

  Aristotle

  Faith, Education, Art

  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (1967). “Wit and Wisdom of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle: Being a Treasury of Thousands of Glorious, Inspiring and Imperishable Thoughts, Views and Observations of the Three Great Greek Philosophers, Classified Under about Four Hundred Subjects for Comparative Study”

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• Jordan has a strange, haunting beauty and a sense of timelessness. Dotted with the ruins of empires once great, it is the last resort of yesterday in the world of tomorrow. I love every inch of it.

  King Hussein I

  Beauty, Country, Yesterday

  "The Arab World", Arab Information Center, p. 30, 1965.

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• A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Sarcastic, Cake, Political

  Benjamin Franklin, Henry Stueber (1838). “The Life and Essays of Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Carefully Collected from His Own Papers, Containing All His Miscellaneous Pieces”, p.408

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• A great empire and little minds go ill together.

  Edmund Burke

  Mind, Together, Littles

  Speech 'On Conciliation with America' 22 March 1775

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• I've never met an American who wanted to build an empire.

  Tom Wolfe

  Mets, Wanted

  "The liberal elite hasn't got a clue". Interview with Ed Vulliamy, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2004.

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• Nature doesn't like empires. It doesn't like accumulation in one place, it doesn't like monoculture. It's always trying to make diverse species. It wants to spread everything out. And we're constantly trying to hold everything in.

  Yvon Chouinard

  Always Trying, Want, Accumulation

  "Don of the Dirtbags: An Interview with Yvon Chouinard". The Vertical Interview, theusualmontauk.com. October 22, 2016.

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• All empires have depended on local legitimacy and local collaboration; they are not based primarily on coercion. An imperial rule that relies wholly on coercion can't endure. It's too expensive.

  Niall Ferguson

  Collaboration, Coercion, Legitimacy

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

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• America is an empire that does not wish to be one ; we are easily discouraged from doing what must be done to maintain the global order that allows democracy and prosperity to flourish.

  Orson Scott Card

  Order, America, Democracy

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• That's the issue that I've been exploring: How did the Republic turn into the Empire? That's paralleled with: How did Anakin turn into Darth Vader? How does a good person go bad, and how does a democracy become a dictatorship? It isn't that the Empire conquered the Republic, it's that the Empire is the Republic.

  George Lucas

  Issues, Democracy, Doe

  "Democracy, Tyranny, And Star Wars" By Paul Davidson, www.ign.com. April 25, 2002.

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• Long before the empire had reached its greatest extent, the Romans were bored by it.

  Robert Payne

  Long, Bored

  Robert Payne (1975). “The Corrupt Society: From Ancient Greece to Present-Day America”, Praeger Publishers

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• The Germans are called brutal, the Spanish cruel, the Americans superficial, and so on; but we are perfide Albion, the island of hypocrites, the people who have built up an Empire with a Bible in one hand, a pistol in the other, and financial concessions in both pockets. Is the charge true? I think it is.

  E. M. Forster

  Hypocrite, Thinking, Islands

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• Take your vitamins. Don't drink vodka. Get used to empire waistlines.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Vitamins, Drink, Vodka

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• The supreme empire is that of the Emperor who renounces all normal life, that of other men, and in who the care of supremacy doesn't weigh like a load of jewels.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Men, Jewels, Normal

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa, p. 121, 1982.

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• The story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a wolf is not a meaningless fable. The founders of every State which has risen to eminence have drawn their nourishment and vigor from a similar wild source. It was because the children of the Empire were not suckled by the wolf that they were conquered and displaced by the children of the Northern forests who were.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Children, Vigor, Stories

  Henry David Thoreau (2010). “Wild Apples and Other Natural History Essays”, p.75, University of Georgia Press

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• Right is the royal ruler alone; and he who rules with least restraint comes nearest to empire.

  Amos Bronson Alcott

  Government, Royal, Restraint

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• History is made of empires, and the United States was by far and away the greatest, richest, and fairest empire that had every dominated the earth. Inevitably, it would fall. Empires always did. But we were lucky, you said. We got to participate in the most fascinating social experiment ever attempted.

  Lionel Shriver

  Fall, United States, Lucky

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.37, Counterpoint Press

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• Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.

  Winston Churchill

  Islands, Years, Dying

  Winston Churchill (1995). “Churchill's History of the English-speaking Peoples”, Barnes & Noble

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• An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  Peace, War, Anti War

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• Look to the past and remember no empire rises that sooner or later won't fall.

  Al Stewart

  Future, Fall, Past

  Song: Russians & Americans

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• I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

  Martin Scorsese

  Fall, Sowing, Study

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• Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.

  Publilius Syrus

  Powerful, Habit

  "The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave". Book by Darius Lyman. Maxim 305, 1856.

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