Michael

“The most recent flood of newcomers, however, seemed different. The empire had always been able to absorb new people into its expanding body, and the immigrants had proved more often than not to be a source of strength, but times had changed. The empire was now on the defensive, and the Germanic peoples crossing its borders wanted its land, not its culture. They were coming on their own terms, unwilling to be absorbed, speaking their own languages, and retaining their distinct cultures. The influx of new blood was no longer the source of strength it had always been. For many of those watching the traditions of millennia getting swept away, the strangers seemed like a frightening wave threatening to overwhelm the empire.”
― Lars Brownworth, Lost to the West

“Must you have battle in your heart forever? The bloody toil of combat? Old contender, will you not yield to the immortal gods? That nightmare cannot die, being eternal evil itself – horror, and pain, and chaos; there is no fighting her, no power can fight her. All that avails is flight.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be one–probably a child–who will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home.”
― Stephen King, It

“He was opposed by the Senate’s more traditional concept of success, the defeat of barbarians in battle and their elimination from the ranks of the army, whilst at the same time they resisted the conscription needed to make the employment of barbarians unnecessary and resented the need to pay the taxes.”
― Ian Hughes, Stilicho: The Vandal Who Saved Rome