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Rome of old was not loved for its greatness, so the poet wrote. Rome was great because men loved her, as I loved my Empire in that moment.
He looked round at the solarium as if he’d never really seen it before. I knew the look well. It was a look more closely kin to fear than people really believe. A fear born of the fact that though we may come back to a place at the end of our journeys, we never really return, for we are not the same person who departed.
His was the fear of the convict before the judge, as all sons are before their fathers, all men before women, all mortals before gods.
If you must rely on rank to command then you’ve already lost your people.”
Rank only formalizes relationships between people, Alexander. It does not create them. One has rank because one deserves it, and if one does not deserve it, he will lose his rank. Or his life. A man would do well to become worthy of his honors, else he will be deposed as a tyrant.”
It is the obligation of those of us born to power or who earn it to wield that power with virtue, because power is no virtue unto itself.
the world of the scientists, of engineers and mathematicians, does not exist. We live in stories, in the demon-haunted world of myth. We are heroes and dragons. Evil and divine.
“I wish things were different.” “Everyone does, in times like these,” I said. “But we do not choose the challenges of the day. Only our answers to them.”
Such relativistic thinking is always attractive to the young. Despising their parents—and through their parents all authority—they decide there is no authority but themselves, and therefore all knowledge which was and came before them is evil, and they alone wholly good. I had despised the Empire because I despised my father—who was its chief representative in my young life.
I had believed that I alone had the wisdom to set the world to rights, not knowing then that true wisdom lies in knowing that I did not possess that wisdom, and never would.
Men are slower to act from principle than self-interest, and far slower to act on principle than jealousy or revenge.
His chambers were still cluttered, the chaos of his living space a necessary sacrifice to build the order of his mind.
“Do you know the difference, Hadrian, between magic and prayer?” Now it was my turn to be confused. “What?” I turned to look round at my old tutor. “Humility,” Gibson said, tapping his cane on the tile. “The suppliant prays to superior powers, while the magician commands inferior ones.
In the end, the machines took everything, and each man and woman retreated into virtual dreams and lived like Homer’s lotus eaters, never tasting true life, with all its joys and sorrows. Mankind had all they wanted and infinite leisure to enjoy it in. Never mind that none of it was real.
The Quiet’s voice was silent, but I understood why. Our words were too small for it. For it to answer in words was like pouring an ocean into a wine cup.
Had I been more susceptible to the charms of women—which is to say had I been the sort of man willing to take advantage of women—I might have had whichever I’d wanted.
Every place is the center of the universe. Everything matters. Every one of our actions, every decision, every sacrifice. Nothing is without meaning, because nothing is without consequence.
