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Quotes About Empire

Such a prostitution of judicial power can never occur again under the shadow of the British law, for no jury within the wide circle of the empire would submit to such an infraction of their privilege, even if a judge could be found daring enough to attempt it.
~ Joseph Howe
If the Soviet empire still existed, I'd be terrified. The fact is, we can afford a fairly ignorant presidency now.
~ Newt Gingrich
The rise of the presidency began with the Louisiana Purchase, which in 1803 doubled the land mass of the United States. History taught the framers that, just as Rome changed from republic to empire with conquest of new lands, territorial acquisition would lead to the centralization of political power.
~ Noah Feldman
If we allow ourselves to be intimidated in our search for truth by the gatekeepers of empire—the billionaires who are now buying up all our newspapers and television stations in order to report from the corporate mountaintop news that is so fake that a whole generation now gets its real news from fake news programs, then we are all wandering in the wilderness. By the way, would that more preachers of the gospel had the fearlessness of Jon Stewart.
~ Robin Meyers
It is a victory for the empire, but not for the kingdom of God, that if you are "too big to fail" it means that your rewards are privatized but your risks are socialized. You can gamble with other people's money, and if you win, you win. But if you lose, we lose. I don't know what economic model that is, but it's not God's economy, so I say, for the love of God … RESIST!
~ Robin Meyers
In Britain, and in many parts of her former Empire, the blame for the death toll is generally laid on the incompetence and callousness of the Great War generals, especially the British generals. In France, they blame their politicians; in Germany, historians blame the Kaiser.
~ Robin Neillands
The pre-Great War British Army, with a world-wide empire to protect, could only muster a total of 11 regular divisions, the same as the Balkan state of Serbia
~ Robin Neillands
Take heart, sir, Cazaril consoled him. It is not your destiny today to win a royacy for your son. It is to win an empire for your grandson.
~ Lois McMaster Bujold
You live and die in the batting of my eyes. You cast a wavering shadow over the snow for a day. I cast my shadow over empires across eons. - Orm Hinn Langi the Dragon
~ Lou Anders
This was the age when everyone wanted an empire and felt entitled to one, days of innocence perhaps, before the world realised, it it yet has, that empires were pointless and expensive, and their subject peoples rancorous and ungrateful.
~ Louis de Bernieres
Depuis la dernière guerre, la ruine de l'indépendance temporelle des musulmans est un fait accompli. L'empire ottoman est démembré et ses dirigeants ont réduit le calife turc à n'avoir plus d'autorité que sur le domaine spirituel. Ce grand événement n'est-il pas le signe que l'évangélisation des musulmans, si longtemps retardée, va pouvoir commencer ? (Écrits Mémorables I, p. 50)
~ Louis Massignon
he elaborated the fashionable argument that the colonies owed their allegiance to the British king, not to Parliament. The point was critical, for if the colonies were linked only to the king, they could, theoretically, wriggle free from parliamentary control while creating some form of commonwealth status in the British empire.
~ Ron Chernow
and the power balance within the Morgan empire began to tip from London to New York.
~ Ron Chernow
Octavius Augustus became the first Roman emperor because the republic granted him enormous powers. And why did the republic do that? Why did it commit suicide to make way for an empire? Tacitus explains it thus: Cuncta fessa. Which means 'the whole world is tired.' Weariness in the face of political and social insecurity is what led to Rome losing its rights and freedoms. Fear induces a hunger for authoritarianism in people. Fear is a really bad adviser.
~ Rosa Montero
That Roman Peace was designed to last forever. When Diocletian perfected it, its economy was so thoroughly planned and so well administered that farmers could no longer farm nor workers work, and Government took care of them on the relief that taxes provided, until the increasing taxes pushed so many farmers and workers onto tax-supported relief that there was not enough productive energy left to pay the taxes, and the Roman empire with its world peace collapsed into the Dark Ages.
~ Rose Wilder Lane
Reconciling empire and liberty - based on the violent taking of Indigenous lands - into a usable myth allowed for the emergence of an enduring populist imperialism. Wars of conquest and ethnic cleansing could be sold to the people - indeed could be fought for by the young men of those very people - by promising to expand economic opportunity, democracy, and freedom for all.
~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
The United States was founded as a capitalist state and an empire on conquered land, with capital in the form of slaves, hence the term chattel slavery; this was exceptional in the world and has remained exceptional. The capitalist firearms industry was among the first successful modern corporations. Gun proliferation and gun violence today are among its legacies.
~ Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Rudyard Kipling
~ Grasshopper
The Doctor: The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. And there it is: planet Earth at its height. Covered with megacities, five moons, population 96 billion. The hub of a galactic domain, stretching across a million planets, a million species. With mankind right in the middle. [Adam faints] The Doctor: [leans towards Rose, still looking out over the Earth] He's your boyfriend.
~ Russell T. Davies
America is stronger than any state probably since the Roman Empire. But we can't do what used to be done with that kind of strength.
~ Brent Scowcroft
Homosexuality, like androgyny, might be an instinctive racial response to overpopulation, crowding, and stress. Both flourish when empire reaches its apogee.
~ Edward Abbey
In private enterprises men may advance or recede, whereas they who aim at empire have no alternative between the highest success and utter downfall.
~ Tacitus
I grant that the caprices of democracy are perpetual; its instruments are rude; its laws imperfect. But if it were true that soon no just medium would exist between the empire of democracy and the dominion of a single arm, should we not rather incline towards the former than submit voluntarily to the latter? And if complete equality be our fate, is it not better to be levelled by free institutions than by despotic power?
~ Alexis de Tocqueville
The story became a cloud, and the cloud a sheet of rain, and rain fell throughout the empire.
~ Alice Hoffman