Quotes About Empire

In any previous empire the religion of the ruling class had always been distinct from the faith of the subjugated masses, so the Christian emperors' attempt to impose their theology on their subjects was a shocking break with precedent and was experienced as an outrage.

the Council of Constantinople that made Nicene orthodoxy the official religion of the empire in 381.

They were weary of the chaos inflicted by the Roman-Persian wars and longed for the peace that only an autocratic empire seemed able to provide.

we find a combination of three themes that would recur in the ideology of all successful empires: a dualistic worldview that pits the good of empire against evildoers who oppose it; a doctrine of election that sees the ruler as a divine agent; and a mission to save the world.128

In any traditional empire, the purpose of government was not to guide or provide services for the population but to tax them. It did not usually attempt to interfere with the social customs or religious beliefs of its subjects. Rather, a government was set up to take whatever it could from its peasants and prevent other aristocrats from getting their surplus, so warfare- to conquer, expand, or maintain the tax base- was essential to these states.

She supposed she was a little cog in the big wheel of Empire. "Nothing wrong with being a cog," Maurice said, himself now a big wheel in the Home Office. "The world needs cogs.

Now it would not be the geography of Empire that would make him, it would be the architecture of war.

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.

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

Even in an empire of atheists the dead man is always sacred.

When Alexander had subdued the world, and wept that none were left to dispute his arms, his tears were an involuntary tribute to a monarchy that he knew not, man's empire over himself.

No good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.'

I'm building an empire. How do you know I won't be the next [Universal Music Group Chairman/CEO] Doug Morris one day? I'm doing a hell of a job, and I'm on the road to that next level.

Reason, which is the glory of our nature, is destined eventually, in the progress of future ages, to overturn the empire of superstition.

The Empire is the institution, the codification, of derangement; it is insane and imposes its insanity on us by violence, since its nature is a violent one.

The Romans brought devestation, but they called it peace.

There's no longer a monolithic evil empire somewhere, spreading a different philosophy of life. That doesn't exist.

In summer the empire of insects spreads.

There is a majesty and mystery in nature, take her as you will. The essence of poetry comes breathing to a mind that feels from every province of her empire.

Germany collapsed as a result of having engaged in a struggle for empire with the concepts of provincial politics.

Integrity is the key to understanding legal practice. Law's empire is defined by attitude, not territory or power or process.

The sun rises on Newfoundland, sets on British Columbia, island to island. Chilly Atlantic mornings and warm Pacific sunsets. An arc that traces a path from the dawn of an empire to its twilight.

The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.

The Empire would love to rip Ukraine from Moscow's bosom, evict the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and establish a US military and/or NATO presence on Russia's border. Kiev's membership of the European Union would then not be far off; after which the country could embrace the joys of neoconservatism, receiving the benefits of the standard privatization-deregulation-austerity package and join Portugal, Ireland, Greece, and Spain as an impoverished orphan of the family;